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NECK AND NECK — Zach Sullivan (left) and Jeff Rose sprint to the finish line in the open race at the
Nome Invitational cross country meet Aug. 28. For full results and more photos, see page 16.
Photo by Tyler Rhodes
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Cover
• Foster claims
primary win
• Aukon found guilty of manslaughter
• School board mulls scores, grads and dropouts
Page 2
• Editorial • Letters
• A Look at the Past
Page 3
• Alaska State news
Page 4
• Planning panel OKs access ramp for elder
• School board - continued from page 1
• Election - continued from page 1
Page 5
• Trial - continued from page 1
Page 6
• Lack of coordination holds back sustainable rural development
in Alaska, report finds
• Alaskans sound off on Arctic offshore drilling
Page 7
• More Letters - continued from page 2
• Norton Sound fishers begin to target halibut
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Page 8
• Halibut - continued from page 7
• All Around the Sound
Page 9
• Salmonella:
How to avoid this common cause of food poisoning
• Obituary
Page 10
• Classified Ads • Employment
• Seawall • Trooper Beat
Page 11
Page 12
• Legals
Page 13
• More Legals
Page 14
• Court
• Serving the Community of Nome
Page 15
• Serving the Community of Nome
Page 16
• Nome runners dominate home course
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Foster claims primary win
By Laurie McNicholas
While the state was just coming to
grips Aug. 25 with the fact that it was
going to be a long wait for the outcome
of Alaska's Republican primary
race for U.S. Senate, Nome's
Neal Foster was getting ready to hop
on a jet for Anchorage to huddle with
fellow Democrats.
Fresh off his win in the primary
and uncontested for his state House
seat in the general election, Foster
said he was being called to the big
city to talk committee assignments.
According to unofficial results, Foster
garnered 831 votes district-wide
to Vincent Beans' 601.
Foster, who is from Nome, essentially
carried the communities in the
northern portion of House District 39,
which sprawls from Wales and most
of the Seward Peninsula all the way
south beyond the mouth of the Yukon
River and the communities of Scammon
Bay, Hooper Bay and Chevak.
Beans, who is from Mountain Village
in the southern portion of the district,
won the vote in most of the southern
communities. Interestingly, Beans lost
by one vote, 51-52, in his hometown.
Foster ran as the incumbent after
being appointed to the seat to fill the
shoes of his father who died while in
office after a long bout with kidney
disease. Foster's House seat was the
only local election decided in the
Aug. 24 vote.
Miller/Murkowski race
results are clear in Dist. 39
In the statewide race garnering the
most attention, District 39 came to a
clear decision, strongly backing incumbent
Lisa Murkowski for U.S.
Senate over challenger Joe Miller. As
of press time Tuesday, state election
officials were counting and evaluating
approximately 15,000 absentee
and questioned ballots in the race that
was still too close to call. Miller's
earlier lead of nearly 1,700 votes had
narrowed to approximately 1,300 by - continued on page 4
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Aukon found guilty of manslaughter
By Tyler Rhodes
A chapter in the sad tale of a dark road,
too much drinking and a deadly collision
came to a close Aug. 26 when a jury in Nome
found Danny Wayne Aukon Jr. guilty of
manslaughter for the Sept. 6, 2009 death of
Charles Bergamaschi.
Aukon, 50, struck Bergamaschi with his
1997 Ford F-150 pickup at approximately 5:30
a.m. on that dark September morning while
driving on the wrong side of the road after a
night of drinking. According to a deputy state
medical examiner who testified during the
four-day trial, Bergamaschi, who was 54, likely
died instantly or within a few seconds after the
impact. After stepping out of the truck and seeing
he had struck a person, Aukon got back in
and drove home without calling or telling anyone
what happened.
The jury also found Aukon guilty of driving
under the influence and leaving the scene
of an accident while failing to render assistance
to the injured. Aukon was also indicted
on a fourth charge of witness tampering, however,
that charge was dropped before the case
went to trial.
It took the jury roughly two hours to reach
the three verdicts, which when read by Superior
Court Judge Ben Esch spurred muffled
sobs in the courtroom gallery where relatives
of both Aukon and Bergamaschi had sat for the
duration of the trial. Sentencing in the matter
is scheduled for Nov. 12 at 2:30 p.m. at the
Nome Courthouse. The manslaughter conviction
alone has a presumptive sentence of seven
to 11 years.
Through witness testimony and questioning
from prosecutor John Earthman and defense at - continued on page 5
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School board mulls scores, grads and dropouts
By Tyler Rhodes
The Nome Board of Education received
its first report Aug. 24 on the
results of the district's performance on
the state's standardized tests last year.
Janeen Sullivan, the district's director
of curriculum and former principal of
Nome-Beltz Junior/Senior High, gave
the board a run down, sorting out the
pile of numbers and statistics that determine
whether or not the elements within
the district made what was is deemed "adequate yearly progress (AYP)."
Sullivan started out by countering
the state's report that the Nome
Youth Facility did not make AYP.
The state reported the school, which
houses students referred by the court
system or authorities, did not clear
the hurdle due to only 50 percent of
its enrolled students (three out of six)
taking the test. The state requires that
95 percent of enrolled students—or
all but two students if fewer than 40
are enrolled—take the tests which
are administered in April each year.
According to Nome Public Schools
Superintendent Jon Wehde, the district
incorrectly reported the youth facility's
enrollment data to the state, resulting in
the failing grade. Three of the students
reported as enrolled actually started attending
the facility after the tests had already
begun. They should not have
been reported to the state as enrolled at
the facility at the time of the testing.
Despite the mistake, Wehde said the
state's report will stand as is. "It is irrevocably
immune to change," he said.
"If you factor in the correct information,
[the youth facility] made it, but that is of
no consequence to the State of Alaska. It
was a clerical error on our part."
The state report shows the youth
facility meeting the AYP requirements
in all other categories, which
include reading, writing and math
tests, as well as graduation rate. Last
year the district argued that the youth
facility was incorrectly shown to not
make AYP due to an error in how the
state determined its graduation rate.
While some students do graduate
from the youth facility, most return
to their home schools once their term
at the facility is finished.
In addition to giving a grade for
an entire school or program, the reports
are broken down into several
categories to show how segments of
the district's population are performing.
These subsets are delineated
along ethnic lines, such as Caucasian,
African American and Alaska
Native. Data is also singled out for
students with disabilities and economically
disadvantaged students.
At Nome-Beltz, students in all categories
met the AYP goals. At Nome Elementary
School, the school as a whole
failed to hit the target on the reading
and writing tests while scoring proficient
in math. The results within the
Alaska Native population at the school
mirrored the results for the school as a
whole. Caucasian, multi-ethnic and
economically disadvantaged elementary
students were reported to have
made the cut in both the language and
math categories. There were too few
special-needs, Hispanic, Asian or
African American elementary students
taking the test for their results to be revealed.
For privacy reasons, the state
will not release data for a category if
only a few students make up that group.
David Keller, the elementary
school's new principal, said efforts
this year will focus on improving the
school's result for 2010-2011. He said
the school has a restructured fifth- and
sixth-grade program and will have a
refocused tutoring program through
Nome Eskimo Community. Keller
also spoke of the need to address the
social and emotional needs of the students.
"If they come in scared or
angry, they are not going to improve - continued on page 4 |
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