The Class of 2020!

The end of the school year is coming up and so is graduation! Our seniors have until the 14th of this month to complete their school work which will finalize their grades. Ending the school year working from home was not expected, yet it went by quite fast. It was a school year to remember!

High school sure does fly by in a blink of an eye! It was filled with many opportunities, activities, sports, prom, traveling, and so on. They are the years to make memories with your life long friends before going your separate ways. These past four years of high school have made a huge impact on my life and I’m sure it has on other students and former graduates of BRHS.

I had an amazing four years of high school thanks to my friends, classmates, and to all the teachers that worked very hard to teach their students. Although I’m sad that we’re not graduating the traditional way, I am happy we still get to celebrate our accomplishments. I will miss all my teachers, especially Mr. Carlson because he made my school years so much better with his silliness and laughter. Most importantly, I will miss seeing my friends and classmates on a daily basis. We are all going our separate ways, but I will remember all the memories.

Graduation is coming up! I asked two seniors how they feel and what they’re going to miss most. “I’m glad they’re giving us a chance to have a modified way of a ceremony, but I definitely would have wanted a traditional one. I’m going to miss my friends the most because we are all going separate ways now,” said Erin Kim.

Lindsey Beans-Polk shared her feelings, “ I am extremely excited to graduate; too bad it couldn’t be the traditional way. I am going to miss my friends and my teammates the most.” I hope you all enjoy your summer and I wish everyone the best! See you at graduation!

Canaar Charlie, BRHS

Bethel, AK

The Bethel Regional High School celebrated their graduation on Saturday, May 16th, 2020.

After a Supreme Court win, Alaskans have the right and responsibility to recall

On May 8, the Alaska Supreme Court affirmed the right of Alaskans to hold a recall election. As co-chairs of the Alaskan effort to remove Governor Michael J. Dunleavy from office, we write with an urgent message: our state’s future is in our collective hands. If you have not already signed a recall petition in 2020, now is the time to request a household booklet online and sign again.

After months of stall tactics by the Governor, the Alaska Supreme Court has put to rest all legal challenges to the recall. Its ruling confirmed what we knew all along: Governor Dunleavy acted incompetently, demonstrated lack of fitness, and violated Alaska law and the Alaska Constitution. No amount of foot-dragging, even by state leaders, can change those facts. We won. The recall is moving forward with speed.

In the shadow of COVID-19, many Alaskans are spending every waking hour homeschooling children and scrambling to pay household bills. While you’ve been sheltering in place, away from jobs, friends, and group gatherings in an effort to keep your fellow Alaskans safe, Governor Dunleavy has been busy—doubling down on the same extreme vetoes to higher education, healthcare, public radio, school bond debt reimbursement, and coastal infrastructure he made last year.

The difference? This time he cut crucial services in the midst of a global pandemic, injecting economic risk and additional instability during a time when we can least afford it. The governor’s new vetoes this spring send a fresh wave of harm to rural Alaskans, to businesses in coastal communities, and to hospitals preparing for a second surge of COVID-19 cases as we begin to ease distancing restrictions. Despite deafening outcry from every corner of the state, our governor has not listened to Alaskans over the past year, nor has he learned.

As bi-partisan Recall Dunleavy co-chairs, we have collectively lived in Alaska for over 150 years, investing our lives and careers in this great state. Together, we are business leaders, keepers of culture, trustees of higher education, and a signer of the Alaska Constitution. We bring this time-tested perspective: our state is experiencing—and will continue to experience—debilitating levels of economic stress and uncertainty as long as Governor Dunleavy remains in office. His behavior demonstrates a pattern of brutal red-pen vetoes that will repeat itself until he is recalled.

In the months to come, Alaska will begin its recovery from COVID-19 and the task of guiding our economic comeback will be enormous. At such a time we’ll be in grave need of a leader with common sense, a grasp of economics, and the well-being of all Alaskans at heart. Michael J Dunleavy is not that leader. 

Before the pandemic, Recall Dunleavy collected more than 30,000 petition signatures in less than three weeks; a total that typically takes about three months for ballot initiatives to collect. We’re halfway to our goal of 71,252 signatures, but we need your help to collect the rest as soon as possible for submission to the Department of Elections this summer.

Alaskans, the Supreme Court has cleared our way to recall. Sign the petition as soon as possible by requesting a booklet at the Recall Dunleavy website. Regardless of party affiliation, each and every one of us is now endowed with the right and the responsibility to put the following question on the ballot: shall we, the people of Alaska, remove Governor Dunleavy from office based on the grounds of incompetence, lack of fitness, and violating Alaska law and the Alaska Constitution? The choice is ours to make.

Joseph Usibelli Sr. is chairman of the board of Usibelli Coal Mine, Inc. Victor Fischer served in Alaska’s territorial Legislature and is the last living member of the group of 55 men and women who wrote Alaska’s State Constitution. Both serve as co-chairs to Recall Dunleavy.

Joe Usibelli Sr. and Vic Fischer

Anchorage, AK

Everyone has to do their part because we are all part of the Earth

This is the real irony on Earth as it exists now. One that is gripping humanity in a fight for life, the other a more healthier planet we get with the standstill of carbon dioxide emissions practically all over the world.

This irony is both heart wrenching due to the loss of so many lives to the disease taking hold of the world, and the other, joy for the life of Earth with less gas in the atmosphere and promising a cleaner atmosphere – leaving hope for the continuation of life on Earth.

We and regrettably so have reached our time with little regard for life on Earth, with over-consumption and disregard for Earth’s cleanliness. For the life of people that is in peril from what was not asked for, a disease that has a grasp on our able-minded scientists to find the solution.

For Earth the standstill of pollution emissions is proving how clean it can actually be … or should be. Saving Earth is no different than trying to save precious lives of people; it is the disease that is the pollution in humans as it is pollution for Earth.

Both are very precious for each other; one that can save humanity and the other being humankind that can save the Earth. The facts speak for themselves, for the human disease it is not known if it will get worse before a solution is found.

Just as for Earth it is not known if it will get worse from what has gripped it for so long. It is evident pollution in the atmosphere has brought climate change. If this standstill of industrial slow-down of emissions could help to reverse climate change it will bring a healthier life on Earth.

When you think of this as climate change that is happening, bringing violent weather and bringing it as more common, every year will get worse.

Vital rain forests that do the most to capture carbon dioxide are being decimated through clear-cutting even as we read. Is this something to be scared of? Yes it is and there is no room for people that say climate change is fake. We, ourselves, as inhabitants of Earth, the trend of deadly pollutions has to be reversed just as the world is trying to save lives of people from the dreaded disease. Everyone needs to do their part because it is everyone that is part of the Earth – everyone.

Billy Lincoln Jr.

Toksook Bay, AK

(Editor’s Note: this letter is reprinted with correction, quyana.)

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