Book donation enriches student education

On behalf of Kenai Peninsula Borough School District Migrant Education, we would like to extend our sincere gratitude to Chris Story for his generous donation of his inspiring book, “The Backyard Millionaire: How to Create Wealth Where You Are With What You’ve Got!,” to some of our migrant students. This donation is a meaningful contribution to empowering these young individuals by providing them with valuable insights into financial literacy and personal growth.

Community members like Mr. Story play a pivotal role in supporting and guiding our youth. His contribution not only enriches our students’ understanding of building financial stability but also instills a growth mindset within themselves, regardless of their current circumstances. With such resources, we can help guide our students toward brighter futures, equipping them to make positive impacts on their lives and communities.

Once again, we thank Mr. Story for his kindness and commitment to fostering a supportive and inspiring environment for all.

Sincerely,

Joanna Fonkert and The KPBSD Migrant Education Team

Legislation will empower primary care providers

Nearly 8,400 Alaskans are living with Alzheimer’s, however, as many as half of them have not been diagnosed. With new FDA-approved Alzheimer’s treatments, the need for early detection and diagnosis is even more critical. As someone who has experienced this disease since I was a child, I understand firsthand the importance of early detection and diagnosis.

Primary care providers are often the first clinicians with whom individuals discuss cognition concerns, improving their access to the latest dementia training is critical.

The bipartisan Acceleration Access to Dementia & Alzheimer’s Provider Training (AADAPT) Act (H.R. 7688 / S. 4276) will empower primary care providers in Alaska to better diagnose Alzheimer’s and other dementia and deliver high-quality, person-centered care in our community.

Too often, overburdened primary care providers are unable to access the latest patient-centered dementia training. Through the use of Project ECHO, the AADAPT Act would provide video-conferencing Alzheimer’s and dementia education and training to more primary care providers. This training will increase their understanding of detection, diagnosis, care and treatment of Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia.

This is ideal for rural states like Alaska.

Thankfully, Sens. Dan Sullivan and Lisa Murkowski and Rep. Mary Peltola can play an important role in accelerating dementia workforce preparedness in Alaska.

Please join me and the Alzheimer’s Association in encouraging Sens. Sullivan and Murkowski and Rep. Peltola to support the AADAPT Act.

To learn more about this disease and how you can join the fight to end Alzheimer’s, visit alz.org

Cindy Harris, board member

Alzheimer’s Association Alaska

A request for answers

Now that some of the dust has settled from recent events, I would like to make an overture to those who voted for the next president, and request a more thorough explanation, to better understand that choice.

When so many members of his previous administration refused to support him, and voiced serious concerns regarding his leadership and decision making, how is it you felt you knew better than they? Does informed expertise and experience ever supersede loyalty?

As we are still the world’s largest economy, what does “America First” mean in terms of capital, natural resources and the distribution of goods being thoroughly, inextricably and entirely global? What markets and spheres of influence are you wishing to confine and curtail?

Since we rely on the ocean for so much, when Project 2025 says it will slash the budget of National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration for being “climate alarmists” will you still eagerly head out into the lower inlet without any reliable forecasting available? Is it OK to you that the Gulf states will have greatly reduced hurricane warnings while the strength of these storms, like it or not, is greatly increasing?

Hard to ignore the power of the podium, when current civil discourse has for years now been reduced to persistent juvenile name calling and scatological personal insults. When even roadside signs of opponents are vandalized, are we to expect that as the new normal?

Is it acceptable to you that broadcast licenses are threatened after an unfavorable story on an elected official, simply because it is not one of your own preferred information sources?

Locally and now nationally, those willing to work with those across the aisle have been removed from office; is a one-party system the goal? Does that remind you of anything?

Why are you so willing to have politicians supplant doctors in making medical decisions, particularly for women and daughters? Are you comfortable when your children hear bizarre distortions and outright lies and see fact checking being scorned and derided?

One really terrific success of our political system has been the peaceful transfer of power. When the next president states publicly that he should not have left office four years ago, while so many of us have been waiting four years for verifiable concrete and substantiated evidence of voter fraud, are you willing to sacrifice a precedent that originated with George Washington? Was January 6 a previous attempt at just that?

As a political independent, I have voted for candidates from both parties. The conservative party of Nixon and Reagan and the Bush dynasty is obviously no longer, so I find it disingenuous that you still even call yourselves Republicans, when in truth it is the Trump party now, in a perfect profile of a personality cult. Time to admit it, don’t you agree?

Thank you for giving this your attention.

Jerry Frederick

Homer

Kodachrome Ritz celebrates vibrant Homer community

On behalf of The Homer Society of Natural History, Inc. board of directors and Pratt Museum staff, I would like to offer sincere thanks to all who participated in our recent benefit event, Kodachrome RITZ. We were proud to once again bring people together for this event.

Each gallery in the museum held something special for attendees to experience while they sipped their wine and enjoyed hearty hors d’oeuvres.

The Main Gallery featured special exhibition Rarefied Light 2023, a series of award-winning photographs from across the state of Alaska, as well as enchanting piano pieces performed by local musician, Erica Ono Hasche.

Online and live auction items were displayed in the Marine Gallery.

A live-art demonstration featuring local artist Sharlene Cline was held in the Gallery Kachemak Bay: An Exploration of People and Place culminating in the creation of Japanese Shikishi rice paper panels painted with delicate fireweed blooms.

Kodachrome RITZ was a tremendous success thanks to widespread support from our community. There was good energy and enthusiasm as we all gathered to raise funds for the Pratt Museum. With your help, we raised nearly $17,000 in support of the museum’s critical efforts to explore and preserve the traditions, cultures, science and art of Kachemak Bay.

Thank you to our event sponsors: Northrim Bank, South Peninsula Hospital, Beluga Air, Homer Real Estate, and Far North Tenant Improvements. I also want to thank the 44 businesses and individuals who donated auction items as well as the 110 community members who participated in the event. Thank you to the volunteers who helped make the event extra fabulous, including our bartender, caterers, photographers and MC.

With sincere gratitude,

Patricia Relay

Executive director, Pratt Museum

Thank you Homer Foundation Youth Advisory Committee

South Peninsula Behavioral Health would like to thank the Homer Foundation’s Youth Advisory Committee for continuing to support us in our mission of enhancing community health, productivity, and social engagement.

Through funding from Homer Foundation’s Youth Advisory Committee, we were able to purchase materials for a Mental Wellness Lending Library that is open to the public. The library contains books and magazines related to mental wellness for youth and adults of all ages who have curiosities about mental health.

Thank you for your continued support of the work we do with children and families in this community.

Rudy Multz

Child & Family Services Program Manager, SPBHS

On the Trump election

How cunning, absolutely cunning, to so effectively dupe an electorate to be voted into the the most powerful office on this globe, earth.

Having felony convictions, serial and abjectly lying, cheating consistently to his family and business associates, impeached twice by our highest legislative body, plus felony indictments in the country yet to be litigated. Having declared bankruptcy multiple times attesting to the character who he is, we now must abide by his pronounced dictates supported by a party of fealty, acquiescing members who fear to even breath the least notes difference.

How can we possibly look forward to democracy (our rights and freedoms) in the absence of truth and honor. If truth and honor have any chance of once again prevailing it is inconceivable but that it will take decades, at a minimum, with intervening certain chaos prevailing in its absence to once again have in what is essential and fundamental to democracy and all of its attendant rights and privileges.

Can we possibly know how damaging the role model (lying, cheating, felony convictions, indictments and guttural speech) of this person is to our national ethos?

William J. Marley

Homer

Thoughts on Board of Fisheries meeting

Regarding the Nov. 8 article published in the Peninsula Clarion, “Board of Fisheries again declines to hold Upper Cook Inlet meeting on Kenai Peninsula”:

The board of fish has not met in Soldotna for 25 years.

1) 1999 was a contentious meeting; 2) There were no arrests made or ER visits; 3) Letters from three or more KRSA board members were sent to the board of fish in 2002 that declared SOLDOTNA TOO DANGEROUS for a board meeting.

A so-called public process that discriminates agaist Alaska Natives, handicapped, the indigent, local fishermen, Kenai Peninsula residents, is the exact antithesis of an inclusive public process. The board of fish has deceived the public for 25 years. There is no regional rep or meeting. When will their devious deception end?

John McCombs

Ninilchik