Author: kfskadmin

Petersburg students and staff are settling into their first week of school. The slate of new administrators this year includes Middle School Principal Mike Brawner. Brawner hails from Tennessee, where he was principal at a kindergarten through eighth grade school in a rural town. Brawner has been an elementary principal and a high school technology teacher as well. Along with serving as Petersburg’s middle school principal, Brawner is also the district’s athletic director.
As part of a series of conversations with new school staff, Matt Lichtenstein spoke with Brawner as he got ready for school last week.

A new team of administrators is heading up the school district in Petersburg. It’s the first year in town for the superintendent and the principals in the high school and middle school. While the new year is just getting underway, Superintendent Rob Thomassen has been on the job since early summer.
Thomassen and his wife, Susan, came to Petersburg from Hillsboro, Oregon. He previously worked as superintendent of the Nenana school district in Alaska from 2005 through 2008. Thomassen has also held administrative, technology, and teaching positions in Oregon, Idaho, California, Saudi Arabia and Australia. Matt Lichtenstein spoke with Thomassen as he prepared for the start of school last week:

As the first week of school kicks off, you’d be hard pressed to find a student who is more excited than a new kindergartner. And this year, Petersburgs kindergarteners and other elementary school students will have a new swimming and physical education teacher. Dana Simon is kicking-off her teaching career in Petersburg. Simon and her husband Dave moved here earlier this month. She’ll be teaching kindergarten through 2nd grade P.E and K though 5th grade swimming. Simon is Petersburgs only new teacher this year. She spoke with Matt Lichtenstein as she prepared for school earlier last week:

As the salmon processing season winds down in Petersburg, visiting workers from the United States and around the world will prepare to head home. For some it’s a one-year experience. Others come back summer after summer. Some decide to settle here.
Matt Lichtenstein recently ask some of the workers at the Trident Seafoods plant in Petersburg to tell their stories:

The Thomas Bay Power Authority is searching for common ground in Wrangell and Petersburg’s on-going dispute over energy development.
The authority represents both towns, which have cooperatively managed their publically-owned hydro-electric plant for roughly two decades. But in recent years, that long-time partnership has been strained over Wrangell’s involvement with a private energy company called Cascade Creek and the push for a power line to Canada.