20 years ago

Several hundred Homer High School students walked out of their sixth-period classes and poured out the school’s front doors Monday bearing banners and signs proclaiming their frustration with inadequate educational funding in Alaska. As songs ranging from Bob Dylan’s “The Times They Are A-Changin” to Rage Against the Machine and the barricades anthem from “Les Miserables” blared from a loudspeaker in the background, they lined the intersection of Heath Street and Pioneer Avenue in the afternoon sun, waving signs that said “Our education will no longer be ignored.” In particular, they are fed up with the way one school district is bearing the brunt of an insufficient funding formula, said Whitney Cushing, a HHS junior who helped orchestrate the school-emptying walkout.

— From the issue of May 6, 2004

30 years ago

Homer Chamber of Commerce officials say their phones have been ringing off the hook since April 26, when an insert about the Kachemak Bay Shorebird Festival ran in the Anchorage Daily News. And while an estimated 1,000 participants in last year’s festival are figured to have been mainly Homer-area residents, organizers this year hope for a big influx from Anchorage and even some visitors from the Lower 48. By Tuesday afternoon, the chamber, which is co-sponsoring the festivities with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, had already registered 225 people for different events in the festival, which runs tomorrow through Sunday.

— From the issue of May 5, 1994