Empire Archives is a series printed every Saturday featuring a short compilation of headline stories in the Juneau Empire from archived editions in 1984, 1994 and 2004. (Editor’s note: Due to this week’s storm, access to our bound archived volumes was not possible, so this week’s collection is from stories were able to locate in some obscure places online.)
This week in 1984, Felix Toner received the Citizen of the Year award at the Juneau Chamber of Commerce’s annual banquet. “I think people should pick a particular sphere of community service and work on that instead of spreading themselves too thin,” he said. Among the consulting engineer’s activities was fighting efforts to move the capital from Juneau, serving as the chairman of Future Juneau. “You couldn’t quote me on what I think about it,” he told the New York Times in 1975 in an article about the capital fight. “What I think isn’t printable.”
Juneau Empire X/Twitter account, Jan. 30, 2018
This week in 1994, It took 30 seconds for Katherine Quintanilla to decide to move home to Juneau after the California earthquake on Jan. 17, 1994 (“Earthquake victim moves home,” Feb. 4, 1994); cable network changes include free education, government, religious programming (“Cable TV company adds, rearranges channels,” Feb. 4, 1994); Hilary Lindh recovered from last season’s injury, won her first ever World Cup downhill in Sierra Nevada, Spain and is now headed to the Olympics (“Lindh flies to downhill win: Juneau skier ready for Olympics after razor-thin victory,” Feb. 2, 1994); and a Superior Court judge has ruled against tramway developer, Chuck Keen, in his lawsuit against the city charging conspiracy (“Judge dismisses Keen’s conspiracy suit,” Feb. 2, 1994).
Alaska State Library historical collections’ newspaper index
This week in 2004, Juneau-Douglas High School is overcrowded — walk the halls and you’ll see, one person says. The school isn’t overcrowded — just take a look, another person says. Having two high schools will hurt the students’ education, a man says. No, plainly it will help the kids, says a woman. Voters will have to wade through those differences of opinion if they decide whether to block construction of a second high school in Juneau. On Friday, the city issued blank petition booklets to a citizens group sponsoring such an initiative. The sponsors have until 9 a.m. March 1 to garner the signatures of at least 2,408 registered voters. If the Juneau Assembly doesn’t pass an ordinance substantially similar to the initiative, the issue will go to voters in a special election.
Original Story: “Valley school momentum hits the wall,” by Eric Fry. 2/1/2004.
