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| Wednesday, July 1, 2009 |
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IN THE NEWS
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Sea shells, beach brick and volcanic pumice: By the time the new Homer
Public Library sign is installed this month, it will not only represent
the town’s hallmark coastal beauty, it will contain it. The sign, commissioned by the City of Homer to local artist Brad Hughes, is nearing completion in an outside workshop at Hughes’ home. The sign weighs in around 3,000 pounds, and is made of literally hundreds of pounds of beach materials ground into grains from sand-fine to shell shards and tiny stones. Reinforced with steel plating, as well as rebar, the structure could well last for the next 500 years, Hughes said. An abandoned mine shaft staring out from a cliff near the McDonald Spit across Kachemak Bay contains its own story about chromite; a time when America needed it and Alaska happened to have it. The abandoned shaft is what’s left of an ingenious system to get the chrome to waiting barges where it was shipped to plants in the United States. A rusting conveyor belt and rotting wood holding upper rock aloft are all that remains. After more than a year of planning, building and polishing up, the Homer District Courthouse unveiled its new digs Friday with an open house and ribbon-cutting ceremony complete with attorneys, judges, troopers, the chief justice of the Alaska Supreme Court – and plenty of cake and punch. Employees at the courthouse took time out of their workday to welcome visitors and offer tours of the new building. In the winter, Kathleen Cole’s job is like a scavenger hunt. But instead of searching for clues to uncovering hidden treasure, she searches for clues to uncovering Cook Inlet ice conditions. Cole is the National Weather Service sea ice program leader for Alaska. Ships rely on her to help them determine if they can safely pass through ice along their route, or if they need to change course. For this important task, Cole has remarkably little data to draw upon. She receives images of Cook Inlet from satellites, but they can be more than six hours old by the time she gets them. The quality of the images she receives is sporadic and images taken when clouds or the long winter night obscure the Inlet can’t be used at all. SPH sponsors Physical Exam Night at HHS Tanner opener called for July 15 Redoubt settles down, AVO says More... |
Sign's on the horizon
The Homer Public Library will be getting a sign this month, created by local artist Brad Hughes.
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