I talked to Derrick Parham as he was getting ready to go to a Cross Country running race. Derrick is in the 9th grade at Skyview High School. This is his first year running cross-country.

‘The races are 5 kilometers but we run more than that in practice,” he said.

He is also hoping to play basketball this winter. He enjoys all sports and >is taking a swimming class this semester and is learning a lot.

“I wasn’t a very good swimmer before,” he said.

Derrick is also a member of the 4-wheel club. “We meet every Wednesday. Last week we went to the auto shop and worked on a couple of kid’s dirt bikes,” he said.

Derrick and his mom and dad, Bill and Amy and his sister Megan moved to Alaska 9 years ago. They lived in Seward first and moved here to Sterling almost 6 years ago. Derrick likes living in Sterling, mostly because it is a small, rural area.

“I like that there are lots of trail to ride 4-wheelers and snow machines on,” he said. Derrick also likes to go fishing and hunting. His sister, Megan, got the big catch of the summer this year with a big king salmon. Derrick likes to hunt for spruce hens. This fall his dad shot a moose on the last day of bow season.

“It was only 200 feet from our house. It made it easy to get home,” he said.

The family really enjoys eating moose meat and has a freezer full for the winter now.

Derrick and his family also keep busy with their animals. They have 6 dogs and his sister Megan just got a horse named Junebug.

“I’ve only ridden it once,” he said. “I don’t like riding bareback and she is still getting the saddle fixed.”

Derrick got his driver’s permit when he turned 14. “I studied a lot to pass the test,” he said. He enjoys driving and is looking forward to getting his license.

When we talked about Sterling, Derrick didn’t want much to change about the area. He doesn’t like cities and hopes that Sterling remains a small town.

“It would be nice if we had a swimming pool somewhere in town though,” he said.

Around town:

Do you know an interesting person that I should interview for the paper? Maybe it’s a teen that has done something stupendous or an old-timer that has great stories to tell about the good old days. Either way, I won’t know about them unless you give me a call or drop me an e-mail, so come on folks, pick up the phone!

From: “Joan Hansen” hansjoan@alaska.net>
To: news@peninsulaclarion.com>
Subject: Kenai Neighbors Column for Sept. 26, 2006
Date: Thursday, September 21, 2006 3:08 AM

Kenai Neighbors Column for Sept. 26, 2006

One of my favorite year-round pastimes is making the trip out to the North Peninsula Recreation District’s pool and gym complex. If you haven’t been there, you may discover one of this area’s greatest assets.
The pool is well-cared for and staffed by friendly people. One of our favorite lifeguards is a Neptune-like guy by the name of Rod Ritchie, who competently guards the lives of swimmers and splashers alike and sees that rules are respected. He is the father to this week’s young neighbor.
Billy Ritchie, age 16, is a junior at Kenai Central High School. He moved to Kenai from Denver, Colorado when he was about four years old. His Mom is a chemist at Agrium and he has a ten-year old sister, Amanda.
Billy has been playing soccer since he was in Kindergarden, and belongs to the Kenai Peninsula Soccer Club and also plays with the high school soccer team. He has been involved with the Peninsula Piranha swim club and is currently part of the Kenai Kardinals swim team.
The team consists of about 15 swimmers and is coached by Lee and Pam Moore. They compete with Kodiak, Skyview, Soldotna, Colony, Palmer, and Homer high schools. Billy’s favorite event is the 100-yard butterfly. He also likes the 100-yd medallist event, which consists of 25 yards each of breast stroke, freestyle, butterfly, and back stroke. His dad, Rod, is a ’stroke and turn’ official, and often helps with his meets.
When I asked him about his other interests, Billy said he was ‘glad school started, and am just waiting for the snow so I can snowboard. It’s fun and it gives me something to do in the winter”. His favorite site for this sport is in Alyeska.
The whole family is athletically inclined, as his sister Amanda is into ballet and ice skating, his dad is a golf nut, and his mom, Carolyn, is an avid bicyclist, who has recently taken part in the Alaska Clean Air Challenge, belongs to the Kenai bicycle club and will have cycled to Homer by this date.
This summer, four generations of Billy’s family went on a grand adventure to Denali. His grandparents and great-grandmother from Phoenix, Arizona accompanied the Kenai Ritchies into the park. “It was neat and interesting, seeing all the different wildlife. We saw lots of bears,” commented Billy.

Around town:
Renee Henderson, Kenai’s local treasure, will be shepherding yet another group of budding musicians to Europe in the spring, this time to Spain and France. Traditionally the choir has had a citrus fruit sale to raise funds for the trip. Keep your eyes “peeled” for more details concerning this event.
Welcome to the new Cellular One store in the mall by Safeway.
Birthday greeting to Per Osmer on the 27th, to Sam Huddleston, Glen Johnson and Bill Eastling on the 30th, and to Sam Taylor on Oct. 1. Lynn and Norma Tree will celebrate their 34th anniversary on September 29.

Jeriah and Erin Knox are the owners of the unusually steeped roof steel structure located near mile 142 of the Sterling Highway that catches the attention of motorist passing by. I’ve heard a variety of rumors about the house known as “Old Ironsides” so I decided to ask them about the history of their home.

Erin told me that Neil Escalante, who wanted a place to get away from the stress of his job in California, built the first floor from a kit in the 70s. Desiring a better view of the inlet, he decided to purchase another kit and place it on the top of the one he already built. For siding, he used steel that was left over material from a mall that was built in Anchorage. His wife was an artist and urged him to make it even higher so that she could view the water’s edge. Eventually, it evolved to four stories high and was secured with cables. Before the interior was finished, the Escalantes were unable to return to the area, and the house remained vacant for many years. Since it was located across the highway from the James Knox family’s home, (where Jeriah lived as a boy) the Knox family voluntarily kept an eye on it in the early 90s.

When the spruce bark beetle epidemic resulted in the necessity of removing trees for safety, the steel house became visible from the Sterling Highway, and the rumors began to fly. Erin said that one circulating rumor was that it was a secret missile silo hiding missiles ready to be launched. Some speculated that the house was sliced in half over a divorce dispute. Since the house is clearly visible from the Cook Inlet, Erin said that it has become a popular landmark for sport fishermen to locate good fishing spots.

In 2000, Jeriah earned a degree in carpentry at Bob Jones University where he met Erin who was a culinary arts major from Maine. They were married in Maine in 2001, then returned to Alaska to live. Currently, Jeriah is a contractor and owner of Fort Knox Construction, and Erin works as custodian for the Ninilchik Post Office and at the Bluff House B&B.

Gary Buzunis, a real estate investor bought the house in 2001 and hired Jeriah to renovate and finish the first floor. Since Jeriah needed a home himself, he decided to buy it in 2002. He dry walled the interior and finished the first floor, making it into an apartment to rent out. Jeriah and Erin currently occupy the top three floors. “The view is my favorite part of the house,” Erin said. “It is absolutely gorgeous looking across the inlet.”

Around Town: Rachel Leman, Regina Taylor, and Austin Bear’s birthdays are today. Dean Kvasnikoff and Geraldine Saunders birthdays are on the 28th and Mark Kruzick and Raymond Drake’s are on the 29th. Happy Anniversary to David and Jackie Bear on September 30th.

      Heathyr Cooper recently turned sixteen. She was born in Anchorage, where her dad was in the Coast Guard. Heathyr, her brother, Jay and parents, Gary and Betsy, have lived in Soldotna for 15 years.
      She’s a junior in high school - “I keep having to remind myself of that,” she laughed. “I’ve been home schooled all my life,” she said. Heathyr uses the IDEA (Interior Distance Education of Alaska) curriculum.
      “I like it because I know my classmate - my brother,” she laughed.
      Heathyr is shy, but has many friends in her youth group at church. “And, there’s Ali,” she said. “We like to get together and I help her with her new horses.” That is, of course, when Heathyr is not tending her own horse, Jazmina.
      “I bought her before she was even born. We didn’t know yet if she was a boy or girl.” Also known as Jaz, Hey Horse, or Hey You, Jazmina is now 1.25 years old. “We brought her home when she was six months old,” Heathyr said as she told me that Jaz is three quarters Tennesee Walking horse and one-quarter Quarter horse.
      Since Jaz cannot be ridden until she is two, Heathyr has spent a lot of time just getting her used to the idea of having something on her back, such as coats tied around her girth. “She’s a real mellow horse. She doesn’t freak (about the coats),” she said. “I don’t have a saddle yet,” she confessed. She is saving her money to get that needed item.
      I asked how she was raising the money needed. “I get an allowance, and I house sit, pet sit, whatever, in the summers. I don’t have a job yet, but Mom is making me get one next summer,” she told me.
      What type of job will that be? “I don’t know yet. I’m picky and Mom is picky, so we’ll see. Coffee making is fun,” said. She and her mom helped at a Soldotna coffee house this summer a couple of times. “But (the traffic) always comes in a rush, so it’s crazy,” she said.
      This past summer Heathyr housesat, pet sat, TV sat (”it was nice, once I figured out how to turn it on,” she said) for the Tunings who sold her Jazmina. She does chores for them and they let her ride their horses.
      Heathyr likes living in the country because it’s “not the city, it has trees - it’s not the city. I said that, right? And you can have privacy,” she said. Her main pet peeve is that people don’t take care of their dogs. “They get shot. I hate that,” she said.

Around Town:
      The Coopers and their extended family at Sovereign Grace Chapel want to wish their son and brother, Jay, Godspeed as he leaves for Marine boot camp. We’ll be praying for you, Jay.

Andria Dols spent much of her summer working at Ocean Beauty fish processing plant this summer and is happy to be back in school.

The 17-year-old student attends Nikiski Middle-Senior High School where her favorite classes include Marine Biology, United States history and Spanish.

“I do enjoy school,” she said.

When she is not in school, Andria spends much of her time working with a local horse trainer. For Andria, horses have been always been an interest and she was thrilled when her grandmother bought her a Welsh pony when she was nine. Her family also had one Shetland pony and three miniature ponies. Unfortunately, the horses were sold when Andria, her mother and brother moved to Nikiski from a small settlement town in Oklahoma.

Yet, her love of horses and the freedom they allow is stronger than ever. “You can see things (riding on a horse) you cannot see with an ATV or in a car, she said. Her hobby has turned into a possible future goal.

“As for college, I am thinking about getting a degree in agriculture and go into farming or ranching,” she said She adds that ranching is a popular career in Oklahoma and she has given it some thought.

 “I always have liked animals and plants,” she said.

Another hobby Andria participates in is the Drama, Debate and Forensics team. She and her team compete with schools in Homer, Skyview and Anchorage. The team is broken into partners and each duo makes a plan for a set resolution. The high school students discuss topics such as if the United States should substantially increase its support in U.N. peace keeping operations and other heavy topics. After the debate, a judge chooses the winner of the match. Andria said she enjoys the opportunity to discuss issues.

“I like that it challenges the way I think,” she said. “In debate, you have to think, study and read newspapers.” After living in Nikiski for seven years, Andria said she enjoys living in a small town and knowing her community members, but small town life has one big drawback. “I dislike the fact there isn’t too many job opportunities for teenagers, except for the cannery,” she said.

Around town Arts and craft classes for kids in grades first through sixth are held on Thursdays from 3:30 to 5 p.m. at Nikiski North Star. The cost is $3 per class or $25 for a punch card.

September 26 was the birthday of Johnny Appleseed, also known as John Chapman. The pre-K class at Nikiski North Star will discuss the icon and how very important apples and other fruit are. Take the time and grab an apple today.

Happy birthday wishes go out this week to Vicky Lott on Sept. 29, Janet Varvais on Oct. 1 and Louis Garretson-Macy on Oct. 2.

Joe and Jean Koski recently celebrated their 60th anniversary. Back in 1943, however, Joe joined the Marines. He went ashore on Iwo Jima with the fifth wave of attackers in Feb., 1945. He was in artillery security which means he carried a machine gun and was assigned to protect artillery pieces.

I asked, “What happened after the island was taken?”

“We was shot up so bad we came back to the Hawaiian Islands to regroup,” Joe answered. “Eventually I served 10 months in Japan with the occupation.”

“What was that like?” I probed.

“It was kind of dull.”

Life got exciting back home in Raymond, Washington when Joe went to see the film “Bambi.” He met Jean at the theatre and they were married in 1946. Joe worked in a mill that made wood shingles, but in the late 1950s those mills were dying out. So he came to Alaska in 1959 and filed a homestead on Crooked Creek. The homestead was accessed by a trail that became Tolum Road. The first homesteaders in there were probably Marion and Ester Encelewski, but Self’s (Tex and Frieda) and Shettlesworth’s (Jim and Ellen) were also pioneers off mile 115 of the Sterling Hwy. Encelewski Lake is the large water body accessed by Tolum Road.

Joe brought Jean and their two adopted children, Gary and Debra, to Alaska in the spring of 1960. Then he went to work for the State of Alaska, Highway Materials Dept., in Anchorage. He was sent to a wide array of areas with this job. When an opening came up for an equipment operator with the Highway Dept. in Soldotna, Joe took it. He became a foreman and held that position for 14 years, retiring in 1980.

“Ed Hollier was the top dog and I was the second foreman behind Dale Sholin,” Joe said.

In 1967 Koski’s bought a setnet site from Paul Shadura and an adjacent site from Ray Burton. Their site is near what became the Blanchard Line on Kalifornsky Beach. Paul’s brother was the well known, Alex Shadura. Ray Burton had the bus barn across from Tustumena School. Koski’s still operate the fishing business with the help of Gary and live near by, but health issues have flared up recently.

Jean has titanium in two knees and one hip. Joe has the titanic metal in one knee.

“These are not the Golden Years, they are the Titanium Years!” Jean joked.

Moreover, Joe had a six-way heart bypass operation. During that procedure his heart stopped briefly as he reacted to protomean, an anti-clotting drug reportedly made from salmon milt. Years of cleaning salmon may have caused his immune system to build up antibodies. Doctors were able to restart his ticker, however, and Joe looks pretty good now.

Sadly, daughter Debra got a disease with a long name that short-circuits nerves by destroying their sheathing. In 2002, after a two-year fight, Debra died of chronic inflammatory demyelinating polyradiculoneuropathy.

Koski’s live on Chinook Lane. They have six grand children and a great-grand child.

Around Town

Happy anniversary to Scott and Nancianna Misner on Sept. 27. Nan is an editor at the Peninsula Clarion.

Mark Coulter moved to Sterling 4 years ago with a bus full of animals. He bought a place on St. Theresa’s camp road and spent most of the first year fixing it up. He and his pet’s now share the house with his wife of just over one year, Katie. Mark works as an auto mechanic to pay the bills, but one of his first loves is music. He volunteers at public radio station 91.5 KWJG doing a Sunday show called “Dead Aire”. Mark is a Grateful Dead fan and his show features music from that band and others that are connected to them.

“Basically I play anyone with a connection to the Dead. Bands that cover their songs, the individual members of the band’s solo stuff, anyone who is a kindred spirit to the Grateful Dead, I play them,” he said.

The radio show is more than a hobby for Mark, who is know as Mark from Sterling on his show. It is also the way that he met his wife Katie.

“I got to know Katie after she called in to the show. I replied to an e-mail she sent and was joking around asking if there was anything she wanted to know about me. She sent back a list of 34 questions. I though maybe she was interested in me,” he said with a grin.

The story of Mark and Katie’s courtship and marriage could fill a book. In fact, after talking to them, I told them if they wrote it, I would be the first person in line to read it! They went through a lot of hardships to be together, so maybe that is why the story they told me about their wedding rings was even more interesting.

Mark went down to the river dip netting this year and while his hands were cold and wet his ring flew off his hand into the river. Knowing the water would recede with the tide, he marked the spot with his net and waited. While he cleaned his fish he chatted with a blonde gal who eventually told him she was from Girdwood.

“I told her I lost my ring and couldn’t believe it when she yelled that she had found it. I thought she was kidding me,” he said.

As unbelievable as it sounds she had found his ring in all that mud. Mark told Katie about losing the ring and the woman who found it. He told her the girl had blonde hair and lived in Girdwood and she wondered if it was her friend who was planning to be down that weekend.

After a phone call to the friend’s Mom they discovered that, in fact, it was Katie’s friend who found Mark’s ring. To make the coincidence even stranger, the woman who sold Katie and Mark their wedding rings was the mother of the gal that found the ring in the mud!

“It’s weird to see how things come around in a circle,” Mark said with a grin.

Gloria Ager and her husband Roger moved here from Wisconsin over twelve years ago.

“We came up in 1991 and just loved it. We started making plans to move,” she said.

Roger is a hunter and outdoorsman as well as being a taxidermist, so the wilds of Alaska were very appealing. They decided to settle in Sterling specifically because they liked the small town appeal.

“People in Sterling manage to be both independent-minded as well as warm and friendly,” Gloria said. “It makes for a great place to live”.

Gloria and Roger like Sterling well enough to have recently moved their business here. The store, which used to be called Malfunction Junction also got a name change in the move. It is now known as Northland Wildlife Studio and opened for business nine months ago. Gloria runs a beautiful gift shop in the front of the log cabin building, while Roger runs a taxidermy studio in the back half.

When I asked Gloria what she did in her spare time she answered with a laugh.

“Since I have worked the past 52 days in a row, it’s hard to remember,” she quipped. After a minute to think about it, Gloria said she is going to take some time off in October to relax and hopes to work on making Jewelry this winter. She likes chunky bead necklaces and plans to make some for herself.

When I asked Gloria to share a memorable experience from her time here in Sterling she told me about a special visitor to her store this summer. She sold a gentleman a pair of slippers made in Soldotna and a knife that was made in Homer. After he made his purchases he went to the back of the store to see her husband’s taxidermy. Another man that was there approached her at the counter.

“He asked me if I knew who I had just waited on and I told him no. He said I must not watch too much TV then, because that man was General Tommy Franks,” she said

General Franks is a retired general in the Army and a previous Commander-in-Chief of the US Central Command overseeing the armed forces in a 25-country region including the Middle-East. Quite a big-shot to show up in the little town of Sterling Alaska to do a bit of shopping!

Although it was fun for Gloria to wait on someone famous, she wanted to take this chance to thank all the local people for helping make her business a success.

Gloria likes Sterling like it is right now, but would like to see it continue to grow. She thinks a custom butcher and sausage maker as well as an exercise studio and gym would make great additions to the town.

“I think it would be great if the area continued to grow while maintaining it’s rustic look,” she said.

Cody Warfield is 13 years old and is in the 8^th grade at Soldotna Middle School. His favorite class in school is Shop. Last year he took wood shop and this year he is taking Occupational Technology.

“We build little motors that run on D-cell batteries. You can make all kinds of things with them,” he said.

Cody also plans on being on the wrestling team this winter. He participated in wrestling last year and really liked it.

“The work-outs to get in shape were hard, but the matches were a lot of fun,” he said.

Cody lives in Sterling with his mom and dad, Catrina and Michael and his sister Chantel. Chantel is in the 2^nd grade at Sterling Elementary School this year. The family moved here 11 years ago from Colorado. They came up here on vacation and loved the area so much that they decided to move here.

Cody loves the outdoors. He especially enjoys fishing. During dip-netting season he caught 8 salmon while dip netting from a boat. He also likes to go hunting with his dad. They have been hunting for Spruce Grouse and might get a chance to go moose hunting together this fall.

Cody participates in Boy Scouts. They went on a bike ride down the Russian River trail and also did some camping. Once again, he likes the outdoor activities the best.

This was Cody’s first year in 4-H. For his main project he raised 2 pigs named Petunia and Jimmy. By fair time in mid August, Petunia weighed 259 pounds and Jimmy weighed 236 pounds.

“We had a hard time handling the pigs when they were little, but the more I worked with them, the better they got. By the Fair they were really well behaved,” he said.

Cody had to learn a lot about pigs. He learned all the different breeds, how to feed and care for them and how to show them for the judges at the fair. Petunia was sold at the 4-H auction and Jimmy will be dinner this winter for the whole family. Cody enjoyed the whole 4-H experience and hopes to raise pigs again next year.

Cody said that the thing he likes the most about living in Sterling is the fact that it is not a big town. He enjoys the fact that his house is in the woods instead of being right next door to lots of other houses. Cody likes Sterling just the way it is and really doesn’t want much to change.

“I wouldn’t want it to grow into a big town because we wouldn’t be able to do al the outdoor stuff,” he said.

I stopped at a garage sale last weekend and by happy accident, met Jeanette Pietro. Jeanette and her husband Paul have lived in Sterling for 5 years and in their current house for 3 years. Before that time they lived on Mackey Lake road.

“We moved here to be closer to the grandkids, and now they are moving away. You can never guess how things are going to come out,” she said with a laugh.

Jeanette and Paul have a daughter, Heather, who lives in Kenai. Their son, Paul lives in California and their daughter, Laura and her kids: Logan, Page and Brody are moving to California. Just to even things out their son Brad, his wife Denise and their kids Ashley and Ryder just moved to Alaska from California.

“It’s strange how these things work out,” she said.

Jeanette also has two cats, Toby and Lilly, that she calls her babies.

Jeanette is a nurse working in the mental health field for Central Peninsula Counseling Services. She has worked there for nine years.

In her spare time Jeanette lives to quilt. She meets with a quilting group every Thursday at College Heights Baptist Church. She enjoys meeting with the other quilters and working together. She makes quilts for her own enjoyment and especially likes to make them to give as special gifts for friends and family.

“I like to make any type of quilt that challenges me,” she said.

Jeanette enjoys living in Sterling for lots of reasons. She likes the area and loves how good the people in that live here are to one another.

“If anyone is in need, people just come out of the woodwork to help,” she said.

Although she likes most things about Sterling the way it is, she would like to see more shopping and more restaurants in the area.

“I’d also like to see some improvement to the roads and a bridge built to Funny River,” she said.

Jeanette said that no matter how Sterling grows she wouldn’t want it to loose its small town feel. Last year they had a mother coyote build her den over the bluff behind their house. They saw the mother several times. Once she was chased by a pack of dogs and led them on a merry chase across the highway away from her babies.

“She was really smart,” Jeanette said.

Jeanette feels that good neighbors share many of the same qualities.

“A good neighbor is friendly and considerate, willing to share and be aware of their friends needs. A good neighbor should be just nosey enough to keep track of what is going on without being TOO nosey,” she said with a grin.

Around Town:

Wish a happy birthday to Carol Paulsen, Pamela Ledgerwood and Linda McCrosky today and Lois Basler on Wednesday.

If you have a birthday or anniversary that you would like printed in the paper, or if you know someone that would like to be interviewed for this column, feel free to give me a call or drop me and e-mail.