One of Alaska’s oldest and influential voices in fisheries and fiscal policy has died. Clem Tillion was 96 years old. His death was announced on social media by former Governor Bill Walker. Tillion served nearly two decades in the Alaska Legislature, including as Senate president, and he was first elected just three years after statehood. Working with Governor Jay Hammond, he was a key figure in the Legislature’s creation of the Permanent Fund, and he was the only one of the Legislature’s 60 members to vote against repealing Alaska’s state income tax in 1980. Tillion was also a commercial fish ..read more

On August 30, 2019 former Homer resident Steve Yoshida, US Heiwa made the announcement “we now have a new Heiwa nursery in Homer, Alaska!” Kevin Co, who works at the Homer Public Library, created a Sadako display and agreed then to serve as the nursery curator. “Heiwa” is the Japanese word for peace. I’m not sure what it was about this little tree that caught my attention for story this week. I’ve talked to Kevin about it before, months earlier but somehow this is the time for it to come up. Almost exactly two years since Mr. Yoshida gifted it to the library. I pulled out some of the books fro ..read more

Essayist Emilie Springer and Jay Barrett interviewed two people about Homer’s Peace Tree, which sits in the Homer Public Library. They spoke with librarian Kevin Co and a former Homer resident about how the idea of the Peace Tree was formed in the wake of World War II. Steve Yoshida, who lives in Hawaii now, begins with his personal connection to Hiroshima, where the first nuclear bomb was dropped, and where the Peace Tree’s seeds are from ..read more

Event Description The Bunnell Arts by Air radio series features Alaska and visiting musicians in all genres and is co-produced by Bunnell Street Arts Center and KBBI to support local artists and musicians. Tamara McCoy, concert pianist and contralto performs with Global Music Award medalist Marcio Candido on violin. Tamara and Marcio will perform music for voice and violin, and violin and piano. Immerse yourself in The History of the Tango by Astor Piazzolla, the Polonaise Brillante by Henryk Wieniawski, the haunting Ballad of Barbara Allen arranged by Edgar Girtain, and more! Brazilian violin ..read more

On Friday, Alaska First Lady Rose Dunleavy congratulated the recipients of the First Lady’s Volunteer of the Year Award at the ceremonial luncheon at the Governor’s Anchorage office. First Lady Bella Hammond founded the First Lady’s Volunteer of the Year awards in 1975. Each year, the awards celebrate and encourage the spirit of volunteerism in Alaska. Among the honorees is Nona Safra of Homer. Earlier this year she was recognized by the borough for her commitment to Alaska’s senior citizens, those with disabilities, rural, and Native Alaskans. Safra works with seniors, veterans and those who ..read more

On Friday the Homer Canvass Board issued its certificate of election for last week’s Municipal Election, adding the absentee, special needs and question ballots to election day figures and confirming the results. Incumbent Councilman Heath Smith will be saying goodbye after six years and two terms. Smith opted to run for the single-year seat this time around, but lost to incumbent Councilman Jason Davis, who was appointed to the seat earlier this year. In the final tally, Davis, with 723 votes, won both city precincts and the absentee ballots for 56 percent of the vote, to Smith’s 561 votes, o ..read more

A strong 6.8 earthquake struck 75 miles east of Chignik early this (Monday) morning. The quake, located at a depth of 25 miles, struck at 1:10 a.m., according to the National Tsunami Warning Center in Palmer. In an information statement, the Center says that based on earthquake information and historic tsunami records, the earthquake is not expected to generate a tsunami ..read more

After a successful gardening season, you might wonder how to preserve your excess of vegetables. Our guest is the fabulous fermentista , Willow Jones. Willow chats about growing up with a subsistence lifestyle in the village of Ambler, the value of traditional and fermented foods, and making fermented foods using dry salt and brining methods ..read more

This week there’s a new artist in residence at the Bunnell Street Art Center with a rather unique mobile studio. Jimmy Riordan, a multidisciplinary artist based in Anchorage, initially purchased the decommissioned bookmobile to transport his printmaking equipment across the country. “This really started as like a practical- I needed a vehicle to transport equipment from Pittsburgh to Anchorage and then it took about 20 days total to drive it and over that time I became sort of attached to it and so there were like long stretches to contemplate like what it would be like to run a bookmobile in ..read more

The State of Alaska Section of Epidemiology released its final report on the foodborne illness that struck several dozen South Peninsula Hospital Employees in early August when they ate tainted take-out food. The report confirms preliminary findings that the outbreak was limited to food prepared specifically for SPH by an outside vendor, and that there was no transmission to the public at large or to hospital patients. The report also found that one bacterium ( Clostridium perfringens ) present in the ham and pork sandwiches was responsible for the outbreak. Another bacterium ( Bacillus cereus ..read more