Ketchikan: Lemonade Day Alaska: Empowering Today’s Youth to Become Tomorrow’s Entrepreneurs - Thousands of Alaska youth from Ketchikan to Barrow will have an opportunity to learn what it takes to start a successful business as part of Lemonade Day Alaska on June 14.

Lemonade Day Alaska: Empowering Today’s Youth to Become Tomorrow’s Entrepreneurs
Photograph courtesy UAA Business Enterprise Institute
and UA Center for Economic Development

Lemonade Day Alaska is a strategic 14-step process that walks youth from a dream to a business plan, while teaching them the same principles required to start any big company. Lemonade Day inspires kids to work hard and make a profit.

Lemonade Day Alaska participants are allowed to keep all of the money they raise from operations, but are encouraged to, “spend a little, save a little, and share a little with their community.” More than 4,000 Alaska youth are expected to open up their lemonade stands (or other business) on June 14.

As part of the program, money management workshops facilitated by Wells Fargo and partnered with local businesses are offered around the state to teach the ropes of small business. Saturday, June 7th, one of these Wells Fargo Financial Literacy Workshops will take place in Ketchikan. This is a FREE financial literacy workshop with Wells Fargo and Lemonade Day Alaska and will be held at the Ketchikan Chamber of Commerce at 10:30 am. - More...
Monday - June 02, 2014

Alaska: “Orphaned” Wildlife Babies? Don’t Touch! Call the Department of Fish and Game - The Alaska Department of Fish & Game is again reminding Alaskans & visitors that May and June mark the season of wildlife babies. Newborn moose calves, bear cubs and other wildlife young may be encountered nearly anywhere in Alaska – including city greenbelts and trails used for hiking and biking. Hikers, bikers, dog walkers and others are urged to keep a wary eye out for wildlife babies and to not assume young animals found alone are orphaned.

Last week’s discovery and rescue of wolf pups abandoned in a den where crews were actively fighting a wildfire is rare, and calling a state biologist to the scene was the right thing to do stated the ADF&G in a news release. More commonly when young animals are encountered, mothers are nearby and will return once people leave.

Mother moose and bears frequently walk out of sight from their young or become separated from calves by fences or roads while sow black bears often send cubs up trees to wait before leaving to find food. In nearly all cases, the mothers return to their young.

Mothers of newborn wildlife are often protective and attacks by moose aggressively defending calves from people and pets are reported each spring in Alaska. If a moose calf or bear cub is encountered without its mother immediately in view, be alert because you may have walked between them. The best course of action is usually to turn and leave from the direction you came. - More...
Monday - June 02, 2014

Columns - Commentary

JEFF LUND: Filling out the future - A former student of mine emailed me asking for help writing his last high school column for his journalism portfolio. It was about a list of things he wanted to do before he was 30. He didn’t know how to start it, or what places and things to list because as we had discussed, noun lists change.

I gave him some advice on crafting something honest and meaningful then thought about a promise I made to a girl when I was roughly his age.

I wasn’t sure how, because when you’re sitting on the roof talking on the phone with a girl on another island, trying to locate the same constellations like corny teenage romantics do, you don’t think about logistics. But we casually, maybe seriously, agreed that when I turned 28, if we were still single, we’d find each other and get married. That night we decided to be each other’s insurance policies in case the exciting lives we would undoubtedly live still had us unwed by that age.

It’s painful to write, not because it didn’t happen, or because I lost touch with her, but because I thought she was my it, my her, my pronoun. My life plan included her.

Oh, what I thought I knew when I was 16. - More...
June 02, 2014

TOM PURCELL: Dogs Can't Root Out Root Cause of Stress - Our country is going to the dogs.

I speak of a recent article on the Fast Company website that touts the benefits of employees bringing their dogs to work. According to various studies, the article reports, dogs in the workplace improve productivity and reduce stress.

It's true that stress has been around a long time. It's a costly work hazard that results in employee turnover, absenteeism and waning morale. And, says the American Institute of Stress, our still-troubled economy and constant reports of foreclosures and layoffs are making employees even more anxious and stressed.

So some companies — eager to improve productivity and profitability — have been doing all kinds of things to address the challenge. They're offering yoga classes to employees. They're providing stress-management courses, back rubs and stress hotlines that overanxious employees can call 24 hours each day. They're setting up tents where employees can nap on their breaks.

And they're letting employees bring their dogs to work.

Look, the origin of stress goes back to the early days of mankind, when many creatures didn't view us as their superiors, but as their lunch. When a man saw a lion coming his way, he was overcome by stress. The stress brought on an adrenaline rush, and the adrenaline sent one message, loud and clear, throughout the man's body: RUN! - More...
Monday - May 02, 2014