Chris Kavanaugh. Kayla Desroches / KMXT Kayla Desroches/KMXT A local athlete, Special Olympics strongman, and community member is moving to the Lower 48 after a lifetime in Kodiak. Chris Kavanaugh has won medals time and time again for competing in Special Olympics competitions. And he’s traveled around the world to do it. In 2011, he went to Athens, Greece for …

Maggie Slife. Kayla Desroches/KMXT Kayla Desroches/KMXT Last month a newcomer to Kodiak’s government, but not to Kodiak, filled the position of borough resource management officer 20-something Maggie Slife is Kodiak-raised and just took over from long-time borough employee Duane Dvorak. Slife’s background is in geological engineering, which she explains is the step right before civil engineering. She says it’s all …

Kayla Desroches / KMXT Coming up this week, the owner of a family-run processing plant wants to pay locals in the Kuskokwim Bay area for their coho haul. Also, scuba diving in Alaska waters isn’t just for people with a love for adventure and a tolerance for cold temperatures. It also helps the state determine what can be harvested in …

Kayla Desroches/KMXT Kodiak Island Borough staff and assembly members have been planning for timber salvage and replanting in Chiniak since the Twin Creeks fire ravaged the area in 2015. Staff will update the assembly on recovery efforts at the assembly work session tonight. Resource Management Officer Maggie Slife says A-1 Timber Consultants has wrapped up logging the damaged trees. NorthWind …

Kayla Desroches/KMXT Exempt employees in the Kodiak Island Borough School District may be close to reaching a new contract agreement. The exempt category includes assistants or those in the central office who may have conflicts of interest if they were to join district associations, which are similar to unions. The school district school board went over the contract changes at …

Kayla Desroches/KMXT A group of local leaders will try to strengthen Kodiak’s business scene by organizing an event for that purpose. The Kodiak Workforce Regional Advisory Committee held a meeting yesterday where they talked about that and Kodiak’s financial landscape. According to committee chair Jared Griffin, the committee held its first event in October. “The previous one was to kinda …

On today’s Talk of the Rock, the Kodiak Area Native Association gives an overview of their current program offerings. That includes suicide and drug use prevention and cultural education in the villages. Communications Coordinator Brian Fraley, Treatment Specialist Jason Opheim, and Prevention Grants Coordinator Matthew Kozak join.

Screen cap of THAAD operations on Kodiak. Video by Video by Leah Garton / Missile Defense Agency Kayla Desroches/KMXT Kodiak Island’s rocket launch facility was one of the players in a missile defense test this week. The Alaska Aerospace Corporation is in a multi-year agreement with the U.S. Department of Defense Missile Defense Agency for a maximum of $80.4 million, …

Kayla Desroches/KMXT It appears that the Pacific Spaceport Complex may have conducted a launch. The U.S. Department of Defense’s Missile Defense Agency has partnered with Alaska Aerospace Corporation on a couple of launches scheduled for this summer at AAC’s launch facility in Pasagshak. While the Missile Defense Agency and AAC declined to comment on the launch date or time due …

Kayla Desroches/KMXT The holiday last week gave the Kodiak City Council a brief recess in its meeting schedule, but local government is back to business as usual. At a work session tomorrow, the council will meet with DOWL engineering for an update on the Near Island comprehensive plan. DOWL has been looking into how that land can be newly developed …