Author: kfskadmin

Petersburg’s Fire Marshal and longtime volunteer Fire Chief has officially retired. Sam Bunge has volunteered with the department since 1983 as a fire fighter and emergency medical technician. He has served as volunteer chief for the last ten years and ithe city hired him as Fire Marshal five years ago. Bunge has been an outspoken advocate for the department and the importance of addressing fire dangers and improving emergency infrastructure in town. He intends to continue on as a volunteer firefighter. Matt Lichtenstein spoke with Bunge last week.

Petersburg’s high school jazz band took second place honors for their performance in the small schools division at the Lionel Hampton jazz festival in Moscow, Idaho last week. Petersburg sends its jazz band to the international festival every other year to listen to renowned musicians, learn from prominent educators and have their performances critiqued alongside other schools. Matt Lichtenstein spoke with teacher Matt Lenhard and some of his band members about the trip:

Of the one-point-seven million acres of land within the Petersburg ranger district, 200 thousand acres are congressionally-designated wilderness. The forest service manager who oversees that wilderness along with the cabin, trail and recreation programs on the district is Brad Hunter, who has served in Petersburg since 1985.The Alaska region of the forest service recently recognized Hunter for his part in a ten year effort to improve the agency’s stewardship of wilderness at a district, Tongass-wide and national level. Matt Lichtenstein sat down with Brad Hunter to talk about the challenges of wilderness management in Alaska:

A local performance of “The Vagina Monologues” played to a full house over the weekend in Petersburg. The production and accompanying art auction raised over 5 thousand dollars, mainly from ticket receipts. Most of the money will benefit Women's Aid in Violent Emergencies. Wave is a local, a non-profit group dedicated to helping victims of domestic violence in Petersburg. Ten percent of the proceeds will go towards the v-day campaign, an international movement to stop violence against women. The movement was prompted by the monologues, a collection of interviews playwright Eve Ensler collected from hundreds of women. It’s the tenth anniversary of the play which is performed in towns large and small around the world. Matt Lichtenstein stopped by during a Petersburg rehearsal and produced this audio postcard:

Petersburg’s student-run movie theater celebrated its tenth anniversary on Friday, February 29th. The Northern Nights Theater got its start with a $35,000 state grant in 1997. It has employed over a hundred local high school students over the past decade and has been the town’s only place to watch recent releases on the big screen.