by Peter Twitchell
When I became a freshman at the Bethel Kilbuck School, our class came up with the name. We looked at all the prominent people of Bethel’s history, and our class was chosen to name our school the Kilbuck School. So in our freshman year our whole class went to teacher Bob McCabe’s Distributive Education class.
We, the class stuck together. Our whole class was assigned to stick together through our senior year of high school. Our teacher talked about doing something a little different. The “Distributive Education” class was designed to become the top salesman to enhance our lives after graduation from high school!
Our class decided, with the guidance of Mr. McCabe, that we would train to become salesmen and start selling candy as a way to make funds to pay for a “senior sneak” trip upon our graduation in our senior year.
We looked into the cost of chartering Wein Air Alaska’s F-27 prop jet whereby our entire senior class of 26 would go to Anchorage and then to Portage Glacier. I know it has receded over the years but in 1970 Spring it was a wonderful sight with chunks of ice in the lake. I am so glad we chose to see it then.
The next part of our trip was we boarded an Alaska Railroad train and went to celebrate the 4th of July in Seward. I thought twice about running the marathon up the mountain! I had wrestled 4 years of my high school and was in top shape.
The next day the whole class boarded the Wein Air Alaska jet and we visited Kodiak, our final stop before going home to Bethel.
