Episodes

(Cordova) – Registration permit hunt RM164 for bull moose in Game Management Unit 6B will close at 11:59 p.m. on Sunday, September 15, by Emergency Order of the Alaska Department of Fish and Game. The hunt area for RM164 includes all of Unit 6B (the Gulf of Alaska and Copper River Basin drainages west of Palm Point near Katalla, east of the west bank of the Copper River and east of a line from Flag Point to Cottonwood Point).

The 2018 moose population point estimate for Unit 6B, east of the Copper River Delta and including the Martin River Valley, was 420 moose. The department set a maximum allowable harvest of 28 bull moose for the 2019 season; additional take beyond the harvest objective could affect the long-term stability of the moose population. Harvest reports indicate the current take is at 21 bull moose; however, hunters remain in the field and it is possible additional moose have been taken and have not yet been reported. This closure is necessary to prevent harvest beyond the management goal.

This closure affects only registration permit hunt RM164 in Unit 6B. All other moose hunting regulations in the remainder of Game Management Unit 6 are not affected by this emergency order.

Samantha S Renner

Wildlife Program Tech

Cordova, AK 99574

Laurie Prax of KVAK meets with Valdez City School Superintendent the 2nd and 4th Monday of every month to discuss the agenda for the upcoming School Board meeting. In addition to the regularly scheduled interviews, Prax will also meet up with new Hermon Hutchens Principal Jason Weber, GMS Principal Rod Morrison and new High School Principal Jon Berkeley. These interviews are brought to the Valdez Community by KVAK as a community service. KVAK also works with VCS to broadcast meetings all school board meetings live on 1230AM.

KVAK SEPTEMBER SCHOOL INTERVIEW SERIES

Listen during 9am, Noon and 6pm News Hour on 93.3FM & 1230AM

Sept 9^th

Shawn Arnold (VCS Superintendent)

Sept 16^th

Jason Weber (HHES Principal)

Sept 18^th

Rod Morrison (GMS Principal)

Sept 23^rd

Shawn Arnold (VCS Superintendent)

Sept 30^th

Jon Berkeley (VHS Principal)

Justin William Werder and Brandi Nicole Hunt welcomed Jackson-Daniel William Werder on September 5^th, 2019.

He weighed 6 pounds 7 oz and was 19.3 inches long.

Congratulations!

Courtesy of VHS Coaches

Cross-Country

Palmer Invitational 2019

The Buccaneers Cross-Country team enjoyed a quick trip to Palmer where the rain was a welcomed reprieve from the endless warm days this season.  The rain also eased concerns about dust affecting breathing in several sections of Palmer’s course.  With excitement, the team jogged the course on Friday night.  After the state preview, we realized that we needed to strengthen our hill training and work more rigorously on attacking steeper sections.  The Palmer course consisted of three laps through the woods on grass and dirt.  There were only two small hills and many runners anticipated setting personal records on this course.  Palmer experienced their biggest race ever with 48 schools being represented and over 1,200 runners participating.

Senior Chloe Miller ran junior varsity with 107 other runners.  She placed 69^th with a time of 24:57, a personal record for her this season and securing a spot on varsity for the next race in Delta next weekend.

The junior varsity boys race took a turn after the second lap when freshman Jason Smilie passed fellow freshman Cole Wadsworth, whom he had been chasing all season.  Smilie finished 110^th at 21:30 out of 143 runners, setting his personal record.  Wadsworth battled side-aches the whole race, slowing him down to place 122th with a finish of 22:07.  Junior Wyatt Mehlberg also made a personal record, finishing strong at 26:03 in 138^th place.  Not far behind was freshman Patrick O’Brien completing his first 5k of the season in 26:50 in 139^th place.

Next up, the varsity girls faced off against 82 other runners.  Senior Sophia Palomar battled tight calves and pesky aches to finish 48^th at 25:06.  Senior Katelyn Wadsworth was only 10 seconds behind her and set a season record with 25:16, in 52^nd place.  Sophomore Momoka Ishikawa wasn’t far behind Wadsworth and finished in 25:23 in 54 place.  Ishikawa set a personal record.  Our Varsity girls are all contenders for state and are faster than they were at this time last year. 

Finally, the varsity boys showed true teamwork as they traveled in a pack for most of their race of 120 runners.  Sophomore Jin Shiozaki upset senior Kalin Woods by passing him and setting a personal record with a time of 19:01, placing 34^th overall.  Senior Rafael Alfaro turned to stealth mode as he snuck up on Woods on the home stretch and brushed pass him to place 41^st at 19:16, a season record for Alfaro.  Senior Woods had hoped for a personal record, but he waited too long to turn up the heat and settled for a season record of 19:16, a mere half second behind Alfaro.  Out of nowhere came Sophomore William Benes, surprising everyone with his 45^th place finish at 19:21, setting a personal record and finishing the course over 5 minutes faster than last year.  Onlookers had barely recovered from Alfaro’s passing of Woods, when Benes suddenly appeared at the finish line.  Each of these boys show great potential to secure a place for state.

The cross-country team only has two more races before regionals in Fairbanks.  Each athlete is filled with determination to improve and secure that space for state.  Next week we are off to Delta where we will face the easy rollercoaster route or the hill of dread, either way, they will be ready to set more personal and season records.

Season photos (unedited) are now available on Google Drive at: https://photos.app.goo.gl/JnYfQgaXKK5MapqW6

Varsity Volleyball

West Valley Tournament Volleyball 9-5/6/7

Head Coach: Adam Sharrai

Assistant Coach: Katie Burns

Buc Volleyball headed to West Valley to play both 4A South and West Valley

Thursday night for a 2 set match up each. The Bucs split with West Valley in close

sets but dropped both to South. Friday began with pool play against 9 other teams

throughout the day. The Bucs won their sets against Lathrop, North Pole, Barrow,

and Monroe but lost to Palmer, West Valley, South, Bartlett, and Hutchison for a 4

and 5 record for the day setting up for Saturday double elimination B-Pool as a 6

seed. Saturday began slowly for the Bucs at 10am as they dropped both opening

sets to Barrow never really finding a rhythm or the energy they wanted. Finding

their game proved even harder against Monroe at 12 noon and the Bucs dropped

another 2 games to end their double elimination tournament. The Bucs had many

rough moments but again kept pushing themselves in hopes of turning their game

around—more practice, effort, and determination were the consensus. This left the

Bucs thinking about next weeks practices and what they would like to accomplish

before next weeks Valdez Invite. The Bucs are up for the challenge and are going to

begin working hard Monday to tighten up all aspects of their game. The Bucs shared

the responsibility well and are relying on each other more as they put more games

under their belt. We will continue to push on this week and intensify our efforts in

preparation for next weekend tournament and find that rhythm that seemed to

elude us Saturday. Work hard and as always—–GoBucs!

JV Volleyball

West Valley, Monroe, Lathrop September 5-7, 2019 The Buccaneer Junior Varsity team had another great weekend of competition in Fairbanks. We were able to face three different JV squads and watch a lot of great Varsity volleyball play at the West Valley Varsity Tournament. Last week in practice we set a goal to work on communication and movement on the court. Our hard work paid off on Thursday and Friday. In our first match, facing the West Valley Wolfpack on Thursday evening, we battled all the way to the end of the 5th set in five exciting duels. Both teams were moving, talking, and setting up aggressive attacks. The Wolfpack did eventually take the victory, but the vast contrast in energy and execution compared to our last weekend was a huge step in the right direction.

On Friday we drove to Monroe High School for a scrimmage, best of five. In this match the team did a phenomenal job of working to meet high goals. We continued to communicate, move, and set up attacks. We beat the Rams in only three sets, holding them to 14, 13, and 16 points. Another accomplishment during this match was the low number of service errors, holding our team to only six missed serves in the entire match. The team was proud of their effort and success against one of our conference schools.

Our final match on Saturday was against the Lathrop Malemutes. Due to an extreme lack of focus, our team struggled terribly and fell into some of the old habits we had overcome in the last two matches. We lacked communication with our teammates; we were frozen on the court unable to receive serves or returns; we tripled our number of service errors. We lost the set in four sets.

It was a great weekend for volleyball, both the successes and the failures. We come home with new goals for this next week as we look ahead to the Valdez Invite. Go Bucs!

Football

Valdez Buccaneers Vs. Eielson Ravens Football

On Saturday we played our first conference game of the season against the Eielson Ravens. Eielson came here as defending state champions and currently ranked as the #1 team.

Eielson quickly jumped to an early lead. Although we generally had people in the right place and time, we had difficulty hitting with force and wrapping up, and swarming to gang tackles. Ultimately, we couldn’t stop their offense sufficiently to give our offense much of a chance. 

We were able to make one score early, however, on a pass from Josh Baczuk to Clay Woodgate.  The final score was 53-6

This week we travel for a non-conference game on Friday night to Homer.

Tom Karlsten of St. Cloud, FL

Winner of the 2019 Silver Salmon Derby

Most people are aware of the contests and prizes put on by Valdez Fish Derbies, but few are aware of what a big undertaking the Derbies are and how many details are involved. Here at KVAK, employees prepped the valdezfishderbies.com website for the 2019 season shortly after the close of the 2018 season. And every day from May 18th through September 1st, KVAK employees uploaded pictures from the weigh-in

station and recorded weekly and daily winners on the website.

The day following special events, like the Kids Derby and Women’s Derby, several employees spent almost the entire day uploading media, updating the website and writing and sending press releases to Statewide media. “This is just one piece of the puzzle that is the Fish Derbies,” said station owner Laurie Prax. “KVAK gets paid a small stipend for maintaining the website,” said owner Laurie Prax “but it doesn’t begin to cover the time spent updating the site.

And KVAK is not the only business or person contributing time and talents to the Valdez Fish Derbies. Joanne Winney coordinated volunteers to staff the weigh-in from May 18th through September 1st . The Valdez derby is the longest running in the state so staffing it four hours a day during the halibut derby and eight hours during the silver salmon derby amounts to a lot of volunteer hours. With events like the

Valdez Kids Pink Salmon Derby and Women’s Silver Salmon Derby, the organization has to find additional volunteers to staff special days and tally winners during the frenzy of weigh-ins.

Debbie Yamakami of Arts Design is instrumental in weigh-in services for special events, signage, designing amazing t-shirt logos, merchandising and coordinating prizes. There wouldn’t be a derby at all without the tireless work of Dana Morales who helps with every aspect of the derby. Morales started pursuing sponsors for the Valdez Fish Derbies in October of last year and made countless phone calls to secure funding and prizes. Morales is the bookkeeper for Valdez Fish Derbies, but she does everything – from printing weigh-in signs to tracking down derby tickets.

Support from businesses selling derby tickets is instrumental but they have to be picked up on a regular basis and that’s where Sarah VonBargen and Morales come in. They collect money and tickets on a regular basis every year from mid May through the end of the derby. It is hard to mention all of the individuals involved in the Derbies. With tickets priced at only $10 per day or $50 for the season, the non- profit organization brings in just over $100,000 in ticket sales each year and about $30,000 in local sponsorship support. Every year about $70,000 to $80,000 is given away in cash and prizes so that doesn’t leave very much for operating expenses. And that is why most everyone who works on the derby is contributing valuable unpaid volunteer hours.

The role of a Valdez Fish Derby Committee member is unglamorous but very important. This group of volunteers meets year-round to discuss and determine a myriad of things. Their regular yearly duties include formulating a budget, reviewing rules, developing a marketing plan, approving trade show attendance, purchasing advertising, securing sponsors, setting event dates and prize amounts, calibrating scales, securing event locations and deciding on and supporting community service projects.

When the Chamber of Commerce closed its doors in the late 1990’s, a small group of volunteers stepped up to run the derby. The group borrowed $50,000 from the City to get started and returned the money the following year. The derby currently is it’s own non-profit corporation run by seven volunteer committee members. While Valdez Fish Derbies appreciates the donated use of the Valdez Civic Center for the Women’s Derby, the organization receives no cash from the City of Valdez or State of Alaska. The group is self-sustaining, operating solely on private funds generated from ticket and sponsorship sales. The Board Members are: Laura Saxe, Mike Wells, Joe Prax, Will Stark, Bonnie Woods, Laurie Prax and Debbie Yamakami. Dana Morales serves as Derby Coordinator year-round. If you are interested in sponsorship or volunteering, contact Dana Morales at: info@valdezfishderbies.com

CLICK HERE to read a hand-out put together a few years ago for Women’s Derby that provides more explanation on what Valdez Fish Derbies does in the community.

QUICK LINKS

Fun Run info

Friday Blood Drive

Saturday Blood Drive

HHES Report

Principal Jason Weber – The current enrollment at HHES is 352 students. Aimsweb testing finishing up for grades K-5. School theme for 2019-20 is fairytales. Jump rope club has started with over 70 students showing up on the first night. The new three lunch schedule is going good.

Read complete report HERE

GMS Report

6th Grade field trip to Mud Volcanoes

Principal Rod Morrison – Current enrollment is 150 students. There are 35 participants in the Cross Country running programs. Classes have been set up in differentiated Kagan groups, and we’ve done at least one structure everyday.

Read full report HERE

VHS Report

Mrs. O’Brien’s Culinary Arts Class and their Food Service Worker certificates

Principal Jon Berkeley – There are 183 students enrolled at VHS. There is a bump in enrollment of about 20 more students, with a large freshman class accounting for a good part of the rise in enrollment. The Welcome Back Barbeque was well attended. Dual Credit classes have begun the week of August 26.

Read complete report HERE