20 years ago

Across the nation, gas prices are at a record high, and climbing. And as the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries agreed Wednesday to cut supplies by as much as one million barrels a day, it’s unlikely that prices will drop anytime soon. Gasoline prices are up 29 cents per gallon nationwide since late December, and on average rose more than 3 cents in the past two weeks, according to the Lundberg Survey of 8,000 stations around the country released Sunday. In Homer, local prices are not disproportionately higher than elsewhere in the country — though they are still noticeably higher than the national average.

— From the issue of April 1, 2004

30 years ago

It’s not the first time Rebecca May has brought a whale into the classroom. May, 32, has been working with whales for 15 years. She’s been hired by the Pratt Museum to oversee the building of 41-foot sperm whale skeleton at Homer High School and to get students and teachers involved in the project. May’s first encounter with whales was in 1979, when she enrolled at the College of the Atlantic in Bar Harbor, Maine. There she joined a research group that responded to stranded whales in New England and Canada. The researchers brought back bones from some of the stranded whales that died. Using the skeleton of minke whale, May developed an outreach program to local schools and adult groups.

— From the issue of March 31, 1994