Turn back the pages — June 21, 1979
Compiled by Julie Rosier
Sun shines, wildlife perform for visitors — The weather was good and both the finned and feathered performed beyond expectations last Friday when 19 media people from Anchorage visited and enjoyed a day on the bay and beyond. The visitors were invited to Seward by the Seward Chamber of Commerce and the City of Seward as part of a public relations campaign to offset the ill effects of the road closures at both ends of the Seward Highway. The PR campaign is being coordinated by the firm of Murray, Bradley & Rockey of Anchorage. Representing the Anchorage Times were Rosemary Varvin and Gayle Walker. Bert Tarrant was here from the Alaska Journal of Commerce. KTVA, Channel 11 sent Tom Miller; Channel 2, KENI, sent Dean Carter and Nancy Case. KIMO, Channel 13 was represented by Pam King. Also enjoying the outing on the bay were Mr. and Mrs. Ken Roberts from the Greatlander Shopping News; Penny Rennick and Elaine Rhode of Alaska Magazine; Alaska Construction & Oil magazine was represented by Pat Richardson. Alaska Outdoors Magazine sent Al Swensen and Frank Flavin. Bill Blessington represented the Anchorage Daily News fishing column, and Murray, Bradley & Rockey had Dave Bean and Krys Holmes on hand to keep things moving.
CL leaseholders to gain titles — Forest Service leaseholders in the Cooper Landing area may have title to their holdings by Christmas, due to the efforts of Margaret Branson, representative from House District 5, and Representative Terry Gardner of Ketchikan, who cosponsored House Bill 33. This bill, which has recently won approval of both houses and the governor, authorizes the Alaska Division of Lands to make present Forest Service residential leaseholds available to lessees under the Homesite Act. According to the Homesite Act and the new legistation, Cooper Landing leaseholders who have built habitable dwellings on their leased land, and have lived there for at least 35 months in the past five years, can gain clear title to their holdings without paying anything except costs of surveying and administrating the title transfers. State Division of Lands director Ted Smith informed the LOG that his office has not yet determined how to set the administrative costs, but that public comment is welcome and public hearings will be scheduled. If title transfers occur by Christmas as Smith rejected, Cooper Landing residents should have a very happy holiday season.
Car wash opens in harbor area — What’s a clean car? Area residents and visitors who have run the Anchorage-Seward obstacle course can now become familiar with the pleasure of keeping their vehicles shiny, with minimum hassle and not much cost. Jim Pruitt’s Gateway Car Wash located in the Small Boat Harbor, just north of the Dinghy hamburger stand, opened last week. It’s the first car wash in Seward history, and Pruitt reported 224 cars were cleaned there last weekend. Gateway Car Wash is self-service, coin operated, and open 24 hours a day. For 75 cents, you can get three and a half minutes of spray — either wash, with 140 degree water and biodegradable detergent, or cold rinse (which apparently works better than a hot rinse), or water soluble wax. A typically dirty car can be made to look nice and clean for $1.50. Pruitt recommends using the first 3 1/2 minutes for washing only. “Let the detergent soak in a little while,” he said. Grease and tar remover in small bottles and disposable towels are available in vending machines to run down the really filthy parts of your car while it’s soaking. Then, Pruitt suggests, use another 75 cents to rinse thoroughly and perhaps spray on some wax. A heavy-duty vacuum cleaner that runs about six minutes is located outside the car wash — it does a fine job of picking up all the gum wrappers, wilted dandelions and old Kleenex the kids leave in the back seat.
Flotsam and Jetsam (Bev Dunham) — Every once in a while we find it necessary at the LOG to spell out our policy on “public service” space in the paper. It is roughly this — ”If you are charging for what you’re doing, we are charging you for promoting it.” That goes for organizations as well as individuals. It costs increasingly more to produce newspapers just as it cost more all the time for nearly everything else. We don’t intend to “freebie” ourselves out of business — so please don’t call and ask for free space to your favorite charity or organizational function, let us decide what we will donate to! Also, private businesses of course are asked to pay for advertising — although we do put material in the paper free when a new business starts up or another gets added to with either services or in renovating a building, etc. But if you are charging for your services, we are charging for what we do via the pages of the LOG to increase your business, whatever that business might be. Requests for freebies seem to accelerate around holidays and the 4th of July is no exception. We would love it if we had enough advertising revenue to put out double the pages we do now and had money to spare, we would be glad to boost the fund raisers various clubs have throughout the year.
Cachets given to historical society — On the morning of August 28, 1979, the 75th anniversary of the founding of Seward, Mr. David Fonius of Anchorage learned that nothing from the philatelic aspect had been done to commemorate the Diamond Jubilee celebration. Fonius, who calls himself “an Alaska history nut,” decided to remedy that situation by making five cachets or commemorative envelopes and bringing them to Seward that afternoon to be stamped at the local post office. Last week he donated three of the five cachets to the Resurrection Bay Historical Society: one for display in the local museum and two to be sold by the society to raise money for the museum. Fronius said his main motive for donating the cachets was to encourage other people to make donations of Seward related items to the local museum. The commemorative cachet has the Diamond Jubilee emblem on the left and three stamps on the right: the 1909 2-cent Alaska Yukon Pacific Exposition stamp which features a portrait of William H. Seward, the 1959 7-cent air mail Statehood Commemorative stamp and the 1967 8-cent Alaska Purchase Centennial Commemorative stamp.