Eighteen people have applied to be Petersburg’s next school superintendent. Current superintendent Rob Thomason is stepping down at the end of the school year and is coordinating the search for his replacement. “As with any search of this sort you’re gonna get a range but I really feel like we have some at the upper end that are intriguing to us and I think have some good skills that are worthy of strong consideration for Petersburg,” Thomason said. Continue

Governor Sean Parnell, who is running for re-election this year, was in Petersburg and Wrangell on Monday. Although there are no South East hydro projects in his capitol budget right now, he said he’s relying on regional legislators to bring projects like that up. Continue

A Sitka seventh-grader has won the state spelling bee. Abigail Fitzgibbon was the Sitka champion last year as a sixth-grader, but was unseated earlier this year in a dazzling spell-off with eighth-grader Kyle Vidad. Fitzgibbon represented Sitka last weekend in Anchorage as a runner up, but nevertheless managed to run away with the state trophy. more