Health

Juneau police are investigating one-pot meth labs – and warning people to notify them if they find discarded plastic bottles that appear to have something inside.

Since mid-December, police have had reports of methamphetamine labs in two different parts of Juneau, where the illegal drug was being cooked in plastic soda-type bottles, then extracted and the bottles left behind.

Various chemicals are used in manufacturing meth and the residue can make the bottles dangerous, says Lt. David Campbell.

“They’re very easily ignitable. They can burst. They could potentially spray bystanders with these chemicals,” he warns.

Campbell says a JPD officer recently found six one-pot bottles in the Lemon Creek area. He says once the meth is removed, the bottles could be discarded anywhere.

“If you see a plastic bottle that looks like it has something in it, some cloudy liquid, maybe some metal shavings, maybe some tubes coming out the top of it, those could be indicative of a used one-pot meth cook,” he says.

Campbell says don’t touch that bottle. Instead, call JPD at 586-0600.

Gov. Sean Parnell’s proposed fiscal year 2014 operating budget would continue funding to put Alaska Grown foods on school lunch menus.

The $3 million “Nutritional Alaskan Foods in Schools” program is available to all 54 school districts this year. The grant reimburses participating districts that buy Alaska fish, produce and even honey.

Scott Ruby directs the program in the state Department of Commerce, Community and Economic Development. He says it helps Alaska become more self-sufficient.

“It’s called food security where we can provide our own and not be reliant on shipping in food from outside,” Ruby said. “It’s a good deal.”

Ruby says the Department of Natural Resources’ Farm to Schools program helps connect schools with suppliers.

 “I think that’s been one of the larger benefits of this is that there were products available out there at reasonable costs that the school districts didn’t know were available,” he says.

Juneau School District Food Services Supervisor Adrianne Schwartz says the cost of a meal is the same for students whether they choose local halibut or pizza.

“The issue is that to maintain a meal price that’s affordable for everybody,” Schwartz says. “The majority of the local produce and fish would be too expensive without this funding.”

The Juneau School District received $86,000 for the current year and has served salmon and halibut from Southeast waters as well as fresh produce from the Matanuska-Susitna region.

The governor’s proposal to fund the program next year would allow Juneau and other districts to expand the menu and serve more local foods on a regular basis.

 

 

 

Lifelong Juneau resident Dean Williams has died.  He was 95.

Williams passed away Tuesday in a Reno, Nevada hospital.  He had been in Nevada visiting his daughter for the Christmas holidays.

Most days, Williams could be seen in downtown Juneau on his daily walk.  He worked out at the gym several times a week and when the weather was too bad to be outdoors, he walked laps, lifted weights, and did sit-ups in his living room, says his son, Gordy Williams.

Williams’ father, Jay, was in the U.S. Forest Service, and Dean grew up in the outdoors and the backcountry, hiking, hunting, fishing, mountain climbing and skiing in Southeast Alaska.

“So Dad had that ethic and he certainly passed that on to us, both my sister and I were on skis before we knew how to walk. You know, he had pictures of us and him out holding us up on the skis, and getting out,” Gordy Williams says.

He attributes his father’s long life and good health to his love of the outdoors and physical activity.

Williams graduated from Juneau High School in 1936. He went to radio operator school in Seattle then enlisted in the U.S. Army Signal Corp.   He served with the Signal Corps in World War Two in Nome and the Aleutians.

During a World War Two symposium at the Alaska State Museum in October, Williams talked briefly about the war years.

On Pearl Harbor Day, December 7, 1941, he was teaching skiing.  He recalled heading back to Juneau from Douglas Island with three students, including a young Japanese-American woman, who not long after that day, was sent to an internment camp.

“We loaded the skis and we  started across the Douglas Bridge, and there was an Empire boy  there, yelling at the top of his voice , ‘Japanese bombing Pearl Harbor,’ and he didn’t have to say much more than than to know our lives were going to be changed completely,”  Williams recalled.

Williams’ skiing ability was put to good use when he was inducted into the Army in Haines then posted out at Adak and Attu as part of the original military Alaska Communications System.

“The general of the infantry heard that I was a ski instructor, and he said, ‘Sergeant, we’re going to need you to come out to the ski area and give instruction every chance you get.’ So they’d send a command car to get me.  I was riding out there first class,” Williams said.

He said many of  soldiers from the Deep South he taught turned out to be good skiers, but they were initially baffled by the snow, which they had never seen before.

In 1943, Williams married Edna Almquist.  They were together for 72 years, before she died last year at the age of 90.

For most of his professional life, he worked in aviation, first with Pan American World Airways then other airlines, until he started his own to serve smaller Southeast Alaska communities, which “sort of  morfed” into Wings of Alaska, says Gordy Williams.

“When Alaska Coastal got bought by Alaska Airlines and stopped service in Southeast, then he and two partners started Southeast Skyways out of the downtown Seadrome,” he says.

Dean Williams also started the first flight seeing tours over the Juneau Ice field.

Beating the odds, serving the community

In 1954, Williams was struck by polio and told he would never walk again.  But he beat the odds against the disease and returned to all the things he loved to do, adding tennis. He had more time for the sport in his senior years and earned a national ranking for each age group between 60 and 90.  He was inducted into the U.S. Tennis Association’s Pacific Northwest Tennis Hall of Fame in 2003, at the age of 86.  The tennis court at Cope Park is named after Dean Williams.

Over the years, he was a member of Juneau Parks and Recreation, and Docks and Harbors committees, the Juneau Chamber of Commerce and Juneau Rotary, even once named Rotary Man of the Year.

Dean and Edna Williams were Grand Marshals in 2006 for the Juneau Fourth of July parade.  In 2008, the University of Alaska Southeast gave the couple a Meritorious Service award for their years of service to Juneau.

Gordy Williams says his father’s love and respect for Southeast Alaska and its people were most important to him, and he advocated a healthy balance between development and small town values and lifestyle.

Williams Mountain, near Taku Inlet, is named for Dean’s father, Jay, who spent his life out and about in the forests and mountains of Southeast Alaska.

“He wanted to see if he could get a mountain named after his dad, and it was especially nice because they could see it from their home,” Gordy Williams says. 

Gordy and his dad have climbed Williams Mountain.

“We’re going to spread some of his ashes on that mountain this spring or summer,” he says. “We’re going to go up and put him up on his family mountain.”

A celebration of Dean Williams’ life will be held at a later date.

Bells across Alaska rang at 9:30 Friday morning in memory of the 26 victims who were shot to death one week ago at an elementary school in Connecticut.

The state capitol building bell was struck 26 times, and as it faded church bells throughout Juneau could be heard.

Gov.  Sean Parnell ordered the bell to be rung, as part of a  “Day of Mourning” declared by Connecticut Gov. Dan Malloy, who called upon all Americans to observe a moment of silence at 9:30 local time while bells tolled.

Twenty children, all six and seven years old, and six faculty members died at the hands of a gunman on December 14 at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. The gunman also took his mother’s life.  Her body was found at home.

State capitol custodial supervisor Paul David Duran rang the capitol building bell. It was a cold job, with temperatures in the low teens and howling winds.

“Very proud to do it. I have a two, a four and a six year old.  I can only hope nothing like that would ever happen,” Duran said.

Gov. Parnell and First Lady Sandy Parnell were among the few dozen people who congregated for the capitol ceremony.

Alaska’s capitol building bell is a full-scale replica of the original Liberty Bell and was given to the Alaska territory by the U.S. Treasury Department in 1950. It is rung at the governor’s discretion.

 

“A Night of Hope and Healing”  is scheduled Wednesday evening in Juneau.

The community gathering is sponsored by the National Alliance on Mental Illness. Community services coordinator Lindsay Kato says a recent boating tragedy that claimed the life of two brothers, the accidental death of the survivor, and other incidents in Juneau prompted discussion of a community gathering even before the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Connecticut.

“We had talked about it a little before the shooting, but after the shooting it was really apparent that people want and need some place to come together and support each other in hope and healing,” she says.

She stresses community connectedness, and says towns generally come together – but in different ways – after tragedy.  She calls the event a safe and healthy way to connect with others.

“I guess in my head it’s hug your neighbor.”

Kato says it is not a religious event, though various church and Alaska Native leaders will participate.

“The fact that we’ve got all of these people from different sides of the community coming together is the message of support we’re wanting to send,” she says. 

Kato says parents should bring their children, who often portray hopefulness in times of tragedy and grief.

“A lot of times with children around they bring this sense of innocence and hopefulness that’s really encouraging. And to have them there I think it would be very important,” she says. “And I wouldn’t expect people to come without their families, because family support is a big deal in you hope and healing.” 

A Night of Hope and Healing is from 6 to 8 p.m. at Northern Light United Church, at 400 West 11^th Street.

Hawaii Sen. Daniel Inouye died Monday of respiratory complications at a Washington, D.C.-area hospital.  He was 88 years old.

He was the longest serving U.S. senator and president pro tempore of the Senate, making him third in the presidential succession line.

He was the first Japanese-American to serve in Congress,  elected to the U.S. House in 1959, the year Hawaii became a state. He won election to the Senate three years later.

A statement from his office calls the story of Daniel Inouye “the story of modern Hawaii. During his eight decades of public service, Dan Inouye helped build and shape Hawaii.”

Inouye, a Democrat, and Alaska’s late Senator, Ted Stevens, a Republican, were such close friends that they called each other “brother.”  Inouye was a long-time ally of the 49th state and worked with Stevens on major issues, including the TransAlaska Oil Pipeline, funding for Alaska villages, the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act, and many other issues.

In a statement, Alaska U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski said Inouye was a hero, patriot, and statesman.   “They don’t make them like Senator Inouye anymore,” she said.

Mark Begich replaced Stevens in the U.S. Senate.  He called Inouye a mentor, who championed Alaska issues as if he was a part of the  Alaska delegation.   Inouye most recently visited the state last spring, traveling with Begich.

Both Begich and Murkowski said Inouye’s passing is a sad day for Alaskans as well as Hawaiians and all Americans.