We Be Cool

Cool dude.  When you are born and raised in Interior Alaska, a few degrees under freezing is no big deal, as Travis DuBois demonstrates in this January, 2000 picture.  The -44F in this picture is a mite chilly, but the winter has produced even cooler temperatures  Travis probably put on a vest when it hit -55F.  See Mom and Dad below.  Photo by Steve DuBois.

Meanwhile, Mom and Dad (who were raised the south) are a little more warmly dressed for a forty below winter stroll.  If you can't tell from the eyes peeping out, this is Kenna (left) and Steve DuBois.  Photo courtesy Steve DuBois.

A good-sized load of Alaska potatoes from Brasier Farms.  Photo courtesy Charles Andrews, Alaska Farm Bureau

Tree on Coal Mine Road south of Delta Junction. It's a hard life for some trees.... Photo by Debbie Jennings

Deltana Community Corporation 
Regular Report

The meeting continued with Kassie Farrar stating that she would be posting this column regularly on the Delta News Web for those with internet access. That address is http://www.alaska-highway.org/deltanewsweb

The next regular meeting for Deltana is Feb. 10, at 7:00p.m. at the Clearwater fire station. For more information contact Deltana at 895-4150

Kassie Farrar, DCC -- January 11, 2000

Alaska Pipeline bridge over the Tanana River.  Photo courtesy Neil Orcutt.

Delta Now A Champion Community

THE DELTA REGIONAL ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT COUNCIL (DREDC) HAS RECEIVED AN EXECUTED MEMORANDUM OF AGREEMENT (MOA) WITH THE ALASKA RURAL DEVELOPMENT STATE DIRECTOR. 

"This agreement sets up a collaborative effort to enhance community development in the specified area that has experienced economic distress as the state's rural economy has changed." 

Champion Communities are established in USDA regulations 7 CFR 25 and are designated by USDA from among the pool of applicants seeking Empowerment Zone or Enterprise Community Status. 

We will be required to enter the benchmark documents, into a nationwide database, within 120 days of the date of execution of the MOA (today, or tomorrow if I take any longer). DREDC members will be meeting with those in each organization responsible for tracking progress on various projects to be sure the document is specific enough to be accepted by USDA. Monthly updates are required and we ask all those who submitted benchmarks to email or fax us your progress highlights so the benchmarks may be updated appropriately. 

The DREDC would like to thank all those who are participating in the development and of the Two Year Community Plan and 10 Year Strategies. Further participation is encouraged. The participation of all the groups and individuals have made this designation possible. DREDC will assist you in helping to take advantage of the Champion Community Status when applying for grants. 

Donna Gardino -- January 6, 1999

Keeping warm on a winter walk is a matter of layers.  Photo by Linda Johnson

Delta News Web Archives

We save most of what we publish on the Delta News Web in our archives.  At this writing, we have almost 200 images and quite a bit of text, nearly all related to Delta Junction subjects.

There's a permanent hyperlink to these pages above and at the bottom of the home page.  Here's a list of current archive pages for recent months:

June 1999

July 1999

August 1999

September 1999

October 1999

November 1999

December 1999

January 2000

David Johnson -- January 5, 2000

 Draft National Missile Defense RFP Released Showing Tentative Construction Beginning April 1, 2001

The Ballistic Missile Defense Organization (BMDO) released its Draft NMD (National Missile Defense) RFP (Request for Proposals) for the construction of tactical support facilities for the NMD program. The prime contractor on this program is Boeing, Lead System Integrator. The Final Tactical RFP is expected to be out in late February. While there are multiple sites under consideration for deployment staging, Fort Greely seems to enjoy the most support.

The decision by the Government on which site is to be selected is not anticipated to occur until after the final proposals are submitted by the contractors but prior to contractor selection. Published sources indicate a site selection may be made by June 2000. The baseline schedule for the Site Development Missile Field and the Tactical/Tactical Support Facilities set out in the Draft RFP is as follows: RFP Bids due April 7, 00, Projected Contract Award, 11/22/00, Projected Notice to Proceed for Site Development and Missile Field, 4/1/01, Projected Notice to Proceed for Tactical/Tactical Support Facilities, 11/15/01 and the Projected Operational Date for Site Development is 1/1/03, Missile Field, 4/1/04 and Tactical/Tactical Support Facilities, 7/1/04.

Provisions in the Draft RFP requires contractors and subcontractors to utilize HUB (Historically Underutilized Business) Zone businesses, local hire and minority (8a) businesses. The Delta region qualifies as a HUB Zone and as such local businesses would receive a preference. This evaluation preference is applied to offers by adding a factor of 10 percent to the price of all offers. The Draft RFP states it is the policy of the United States that small business concerns, HUB Zone small business concerns, small business concerns owned and controlled by socially and economically disadvantaged individuals, and small business concerns owned and controlled by women shall have the maximum practicable opportunity to participate in performing contracts let by any Federal Agency, including contracts and subcontracts for subsystems, assemblies, components and related services for major systems.

To become HUB Zone certified, visit the Small Business Administration’s website and choose HUB Zone. Be sure to have your Standard Industrial Code handy before you download the application. If you do not have Internet access, stop at City Hall and the Department of Economic Development would be happy to assist you in the application process.

An electronic library has been established on the U.S. Army Engineering and Support Center, Huntsville (USAESCH), World Wide Web (WWW) site.  The USAECH site contains the latest available versions of the RFP documents and the latest status information.

A reading copy of the Draft RFP is available at City Hall. While enthusiasm for the chances of NMD is justified, it must be remembered that at this point no site has been selected and no final decision to actually build NMD anywhere has been made.

City of Delta Jct. December 30, 1999

Some of the results of the late December windstorm were captured in this picture of destroyed Quartz Lake icehouses.  Recently retired ADF&G fisheries biologist Bill Ridder snapped this photo.

The upper Delta River in late winter.  Photo by David Johnson.

Pogo Mine area from a different angle.  The river drainage is the Goodpaster, which empties into the Tanana a few miles above the bridge at Big Delta.  This view looks roughly northeast.

Rika Wallen owned and operated "Rika's Roadhouse" early in the last century.  The roadhouse is on the Tanana River a few hundred yards upstream from the mouth of the Delta River.  It has been extensively renovated and is now an Alaska State Park and a popular tourist stopover with a gift shop and restaurant.  Photo courtesy Neil Orcutt.

Shilo Dunklebarger, 1997 DHS graduate, son of Marlin and Pam Dunklebarger, is studying at Diver's Institute in Seattle.  The photo was taken by his friend Steve Bowdre (also of Delta Junction) another student at the institute.  This is the before-helmet view.  See below for the fully rigged view.

Shilo Dunklebarger rigged for diving.  See additional photo above. Dunklebarger is a 1997 DHS graduate.

Highway neighbors: Beaver Creek is Canada's westernmost community, only a few miles from the US-Canada border on the Alaska Highway.  Photo by David Johnson

Donnelly Dome is a familiar Delta landmark visible for many miles.  What makes it unusual is that it rises out of the moraine left by the old Delta Glacier.  It also has "glacial erratics" (big boulders deposited by the glacier) at the summit.  It's a great summer climb with tremendous views.  Photo by John Orcutt. 

Describing Donnelly Dome
by Ned Rozell

Behind Donnelly Dome, Pipeline Mile 560--When I bump off the mosquitoes, the front screen of the tent provides a clear view of a favorite Richardson Highway landmark--Donnelly Dome. I camped near the Donnelly Dome reflection pond to get acquainted with the mountain, which from here looks like a 3,910-foot loaf of stone with green stubble on the bottom third.

Standing alone in the Delta River Valley 18 miles south of Delta Junction, Donnelly Dome always sparks a few questions by those who drive past; I've heard people muse over whether the Dome is a lonely volcano.

Before I took my dog for this long walk, I called Tom Buntzen to find out the facts about Donnelly Dome.

Buntzen is a state geologist with the Alaska Division of Geological and Geophysical Surveys. Donnelly Dome is a bit odd, he said. In fact, it shouldn't even be here.

"It is out of place," he said. "A glacier went down the (Delta River) valley. It should have sheared Donnelly Dome off, but it didn't."

There's a word for bumps like Donnelly Dome, Buntzen said: "Donnelly Dome is a fleigberg."

Come again?

"A fleigberg," Buntzen repeated. "A mountain that has been overridden by ice."

Buntzen has climbed to the top of the dome and has seen evidence that glaciers touched it, even if they didn't shave it from the valley floor. Buick-sized "erratics," rocks that came from somewhere else, sit on top of the dome.

"They were conveyor-belted out on the ice and dropped on top of Donnelly Dome," Buntzen said.

How did the dome resist being scraped from the earth while those around it crumbled under the force of an Alaska Range glacier that covered the area 70,000 to 100,000 years ago? Buntzen said Donnelly Dome may have had the luck to squeeze between two separate tongues of the glacier.

"And there was another glaciation that just missed it," Buntzen said. "In the Donnelly Glaciation, from 30,000 to 10,000 years ago, glaciers reached just to the base of the dome, but they didn't cover it."

I'm glad. Someday I'll climb my favorite fleigberg. But not today, I'm too tired.

Delta quilters Debbie Davis, Peggy Christopherson, Pam Ellis and work making warm stuff.  Photo courtesy Emily Walton.

Bear ice carving at night during the 1999 Winter Festival of Lights in Delta Junction.  Photo by Debbie Jennings

Here's another picture of the Pogo Mine operation showing one of their camps.  Photo by Steve DuBois.

Delta High School Benefits 
from On-Line Shopping

You can now shop on line with your favorite cyber merchants and help out the The Delta High School computer lab at the same time.

   Click here to shop

Here's how it works, according to the School Pop Website:

It's easy: Schoolpop has found an easy way to use the power of the Internet to raise funds for schools at no cost to the schools and no added cost to the shopper.

It's fast: Just visit www.schoolpop.com, select the school that you want to support, and shop any store in our online mall.

David Johnson -- January 11, 1999

Ice carving being done at the 1999 Winter Festival in Delta Junction. Photo by Debbie Jennings.

Dave Davenport stands at the door of the Fish and Game shop in a picture taken last summer while crews work on the new office building.  Staff are now in the new (green) building.  The old building that was erected in about 1978 is now totally gone.  Photo by David Johnson

THE HOUND OF HEAVEN

The words "Hound of Heaven", heard somewhere in my past, stuck in my mind for a long time. I thought the words might have come from somewhere in the Bible but found out from our Tennessee minister, Gene Grasham, it was the name of a poem "The Hound of Heaven" written in the late 1800's by Francis Thompson (1859-1907). It is considered "one of the great poems of religious experience". The theme is "the willful, futile flight of the human soul from God's divine grace that tirelessly pursues and overtakes it". The poem is long and difficult, in part, to follow but has some very moving verse. It starts as follows:

I fled Him down the nights and down the days
I fled Him down the arches of the years
I fled Him down the labyrinthine ways
Of my own mind and in the mist of tears
I hid from Him----
From those strong feet that followed, followed after

The poem moved me to write a layman poet's sequel, which represents my "Testimony of Revelation". It is dedicated to our children, grandchildren, and those that come after.

CAUGHT

The hound of heaven has caught me
I'm firmly in His grasp
But yet for all my fears before
I'm really free at last

He caught my scent at early age
No doubt from parents prayers
He followed me over land and sea
And often through the air

I gave Him slip from time to time
By doubling on my trail
Yet in the distance heard His voice
He knew He would prevail

He always was in swift pursuit
Despite my twists and turns
He had a mission in His quest
That I had not discerned

Then late one frosty, starry night
Long wearied of the chase
I turned to meet that Hound of time
And found God's smiling face

With trembling voice and contrite heart
For having fled so long
I begged for true forgiveness
His answer---like a song

Your flight has been forgiven
Your slate is clean and bright
Go fill it now with things of worth
That you have learned this night

So now I am a follower
Of Him I used to flee
It was the purpose of the chase
To prove His love for me

He knows the dangers of life's trail
He leads the safest way
I listen closely for His voice
He will guide me home some day

And so my dear ones, Listen!
Through all life's joys and strife
That Hound is either on your trail
Or ahead guiding you through life

Glen Johnson
Bozeman, MT
March ,1999

Glen Johnson is the father of Delta News Web webmaster David Johnson -- January 7, 2000