Editorial — Keeping money in community keeps PFD around

Friday will bring 3,269 reasons to be glad we live in Alaska — as long as we don’t think too hard about it.

The big fat permanent fund dividend plus state energy rebate will be cause for celebration for many when the money hits bank accounts, scheduled for Friday for those who opted for direct deposit, or in October for those waiting for checks to reach their mailbox.

The money comes at a cost. This year’s PFD amount is a result of high oil prices, which is good for state coffers, but bad for residents paying the associated increases in fuel prices. The extra $1,200 energy rebate is a further extension of just how high those prices have risen.

So the money comes at a good time and will be greatly appreciated by those walking a tightrope on a shoestring budget this winter. But be careful who you celebrate around. Those who don’t get the money, for whatever reason — checks are garnished, they haven’t lived in Alaska long enough or they missed the filing deadline — probably won’t want to hear about shopping lists, vacation plans or debt reduction.

But there is an indirect way to help those less entitled than you and have your money be useful even after it has left your bank account: Shop in town.

The dividend is a way to share the state’s wealth with its ultimate owners — Alaskans. Spending the dividend puts that wealth back into circulation. There’s no better place to start that cycle than here at home.

Local businesses contribute to communities in myriad ways. Business owners are generous in their support of school and sport programs, and the endless list of fundraisers they are asked to contribute to. Businesses provide a needed service of commerce by their very existence. Do you like being able to watch a movie, buy clothes or get a painting framed without having to drive to Anchorage? Then support the stores that offer the services you value.

In the Kenai Peninsula Borough, sales taxes go to support schools. Some retail prices may be cheaper in sales taxless Los Anchorage, but supporting education has value that’s worth every penny kept in the borough. And rising gas prices and postal rates are making it more economical to shop at home.

Share the wealth in a way that benefits your community. Shopping locally pays dividends all its own.

Guest editorial — Keep home-school money at home

The Kenai Peninsula Borough School District is proud to offer a high-quality, flexible and successful home-school program for peninsula families wanting to direct their child’s education.

Home-school families can do something positive for themselves, their neighbors, the school district and the entire peninsula by taking advantage of what the KPBSD Connections program has to offer.

Connections provides fully accredited, researched-based curriculum materials, computer equipment and all the resources needed for parents to successfully educate their children. Individualized learning plans are crafted with the help of certified, experienced teachers, and parents have ample flexibility in determining the course of their child’s learning. Connections offers options for fine arts and physical education, as well as opportunities for parents to design educational field trips and other enrichment activities.

Perhaps the best benefit of Connections is its ties with KPBSD. Connections students can participate in school sports, clubs and other extracurricular activities, and can take up to two classes in public schools without any impact to the student’s educational allotment. The full support of the KPBSD special services department is available to Connections students, and the district maintains Connections offices with trained personnel in all major peninsula communities — Soldotna, Kenai, Seward and Homer. Connections students also have a graduation ceremony on the peninsula, instead of having to travel to Anchorage or Fairbanks.

KPBSD believes enrolling in the Connections program is a benefit to home-school families that in turn benefits the entire peninsula. State funding for education is largely based on enrollment numbers. Last school year there were approximately 600 Kenai Peninsula students enrolled in home-school programs administered by other school districts in the state, primarily Interior Distance Education of Alaska (IDEA) from Galena City School District, and Raven Correspondence School from Yukon-Koyukuk School District.

Those 600 students represent a potential $3 million in additional annual revenue for a school district. In KPBSD, those funds would go a long way toward improving educational opportunities in our home-school program and throughout our entire school system.

In the 2008-09 school year, KPBSD is instituting programmatic staffing, a new system of allocating resources based on envisioning education as it should be, not education the best we can afford it to be.

Programmatic staffing calls for staffing based on a school’s curriculum needs, with PE/health, foreign language and arts to be offered as core classes in all high schools with an additional 15 percent staffing for advanced opportunities, like specialty vocational education classes.

In all middle schools, foreign language, music, creative and fine arts, and industrial arts will be offered. Elementary and middle schools will be served by interventionists – people who monitor students for educational challenges and make sure problems are addressed and overcome as early as possible. Counselors also will be increased at the middle and high school levels to help promote student well-being and prepare students for life after high school.

Programmatic staffing resulted in hiring 45 new teachers in the district this year. That means new families moving to the peninsula. These families will be shopping in local businesses, supporting community organizations and paying property and sales taxes, which support government services and education across the peninsula. Additional funding from higher enrollments would allow the district to fully implement all the facets of programmatic staffing, instead of stopping short of what this exciting program has the potential to offer.

Home-school parents, please investigate what Connections can help you do for your student. KPBSD believes its home-school program not only connects families with a good education, but it better connects them to their community, as well.

Connections is a quality home-school program; buy local and invest in your community. For more information about the Connections program, please call 714-8880, e-mail Principal Lee Young at lyoung@kpbsd.k12.ak.us, or visit the Web site, http://connect.kpbsd.k12.ak.us/.

Melody Douglas is the chief financial officer for the Kenai Peninsula Borough School District.

Frontier justice: All’s well that ends in a well

By Clark Fair
Redoubt Reporter

Jerry Hobart was sleeping peacefully on a cold, dark February night when he was awakened by the sounds of damage being done. It was about 1:30 a.m. in 1960. Almost immediately he knew that the place was being robbed.

A ticket agent for Pacific Northern Airlines in Kenai, the 22-year-old Hobart, his wife, Carol, and infant daughter, Katie, lived in a one-bedroom efficiency apartment off the back of the PNA office. Hobart quickly rose from bed, signaled to Carol to stay where she was, and headed for his gun.

“It was pretty evident what was happening,” Hobart said. “I could hear the guys talking.”

He speculated that the thieves might not have realized anyone was living in the PNA facility.

His rifle was hanging in its case in the bedroom closet.

“I went in and unzipped the case,” he said. “I didn’t know how many (rounds) was in the magazine, but I knew there was at least one. I didn’t keep anything in the chamber.”

His hands wrapped around his rifle — a bolt-action .308 used mainly for moose hunting. He moved quietly down a narrow passageway separating the apartment from the lobby.

“I went out into the lobby, and that’s when I jacked a round into the chamber,” he said. He got the immediate attention of two men behind the ticket counter busily attempting to break into what Hobart called a “tin-can type of cabinet (used) as a safe.”

“There was a night light so I could see ’em. I told ’em to get out from behind the counter and get down on the floor. And they did.

“I got ’em lying down, and the older guy, who was the one with the big rap sheet, turned out, he kept wanting to get up in somewhat of a sitting or squatting position. So I pointed the rifle near him — I don’t know that I pointed it right at him — and I told him, ‘Get back on the floor, flat on your stomach!’”

If the burglars wondered whether Hobart was prepared to shoot, they didn’t have to wait long to find out.

As Hobart was attempting to call for help, the older man took off running. “I shot at him, but I shot for the legs. I didn’t shoot for the torso,” he said.

Hobart was cradling the rifle at the time, so his shot came more or less from the hip.

“I missed him but sure took a lot of wood off the door jamb,” he said. “Then I turned back into the room, and the other guy melted into the floor. He wasn’t going anywhere.”

The thieves had left a car parked outside, and the escaping man fled for it. Assured that the younger man would stay put, Hobart poked his head outside. Judging by the taillights, he guessed the car to be an Oldsmobile.

Back inside, he called Stan Thompson, who at the time was the U.S. commissioner for most of the Kenai Peninsula.

In 1960, Kenai had no jail, no marshal or regular magistrate, and only sporadic highway patrol. On that day, the closest state trooper was in Anchorage, more than three hours away on a narrow gravel highway.

“I was the only judicial figure (in the area),” Thompson said. “I had to do all the law work and the prisoner work and everything. There weren’t any other officials out there.”
Thompson told Hobart to bring the prisoner over.

At the time, the PNA office was across from the current Kenai Visitors and Cultural Center, while Thompson was living with his wife, Donnis, above their Kenai Korners building materials store next to where Paradisos is now. Although the distance was not great, Hobart decided to enlist some help in escorting the prisoner.

“I figured if I’m going to march that sucker over there, I’ll put in a call to the MPs (military police at the Wildwood military base, where Hobart had served for two years) and see if I can get somebody to give me a hand.”

A short time later, two MPs appeared, with sidearms. Confidentially, they informed Hobart they were willing to help as much as possible but they wouldn’t be able to fire upon a civilian prisoner if he caused a problem. Hobart told them he was willing to do the shooting.

Once Thompson had the prisoner “in custody,” he called for trooper assistance and reached Officer Wayne Morgan. With Hobart’s help, he described the escaped burglar and his vehicle.

Thompson and Hobart then had to decide how to detain their prisoner until Morgan arrived. They considered several options before Thompson remembered the hand-dug well beneath the floor of his building.

They removed the floorboards covering the well and switched on the single bulb dangling in the cribbed 6-by-6 shaft. More than 10 feet down, on dry ground, sat an electric pump, and they sent the prisoner down a ladder to wait.

They also sent down a chair and some magazines. Just before they replaced the floorboards, they decided to increase the young man’s incentive to stay put.

“I told him I was setting my big dog right on top of the well, so he didn’t want to try to come out. And believe me, he didn’t,” Thompson said.

Instead of a big dog, they actually stacked crates of paint on top of the floorboards, Hobart said. Prisoner detention accounted for, Hobart walked back home and went to bed.

About four or five hours later, Officer Morgan arrived and took the prisoner into custody. Earlier, he had apprehended the older man at a roadblock on the outskirts of Anchorage, where he had parked his patrol car and watched for the suspect Oldsmobile.

Both men were tried and convicted. Later, FBI officials came by to examine Thompson’s well to see whether the prisoner’s treatment qualified as cruel or unusual punishment. They decided it did not.

Hobart ¬later briefly became a state trooper himself.

Grizzly situation — Fall brown bear hunt depends on several factors

By Clark Fair
Redoubt Reporter

Judging by the extensive media coverage of bear maulings and other close encounters this summer, one might imagine that the brown bear population on the Kenai Peninsula is thriving and is posing a greater risk to humans than ever before.

Seeming to support those assumptions, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game reports that at least 30 “human-caused mortalities” of brown bears have occurred in 2008. Most of those deaths were termed “defense of life and property” killings. Only one was attributed to hunting.

The number of brown bears killed by people this year is about the same as the totals for 2007 and 2006, but generally higher than in previous years. In the 1990s, for example, according to Fish and Game figures, the number of nonhunting brown bear deaths averaged only 6.5 per year.

As a result of these increasing bear-human conflicts, some people believe the peninsula’s brown bear population is too large and needs to be reduced. Even if they are correct, however, actually making a dent in the bear population won’t be easy.

The effort is hindered by two factors: a complicated set of rules for establishing hunting seasons, and the fact that a census of brown bears on the Kenai Peninsula has never been done.

Hunters probably won’t even get a chance at a season this fall. According to Jeff Selinger, Fish and Game area wildlife biologist, this year’s fall brown bear hunt will be canceled for game management units 7 and 15, the eastern and western halves of the peninsula, respectively.

The move would mark the fourth consecutive cancellation by the department. The last full peninsula fall season occurred in 2001 and the season in 2004 lasted only two days.

Don’t count on it

Although Fish and Game’s own Web site lists the Kenai Peninsula brown bear as a “species of special concern” in its endangered species section, some department biologists believe the brown bear population is strong.

The problem lies in proving it.

Brown bear populations have been estimated based on data from other similar areas, but no actual census has been done because of the logistical difficulties and the expense, Selinger said.

What’s left is mostly a gut instinct based on available information.

“I have no doubt that there’s more. I can’t prove it scientifically, but all the anecdotal information — and it’s plentiful — is there’s more brown bears on the Kenai than there were 10 years ago,” Selinger said.

Longtime peninsula guide and lifelong Alaskan Laine Lahndt agrees.

“I feel that there’s more here than when I was a kid growing up here,” said Lahndt, whose grandparents settled near Kasilof in the 1930s. “My brother and I ran all over Kasilof and never saw a brown bear or even saw a brown bear track. Now I routinely see bears, and we’re consistently seeing tracks up and down our road.

“There’s just a lot more bears than there used to be.”

Although he sympathizes with those who are worried about bears in urban areas, Lahndt, who runs a winter trapline on Tustumena Lake and has been involved in big-game guiding for nearly 30 years, is more concerned about rising brown bear numbers for another reason: their skillful predation on moose calves.

On the Kenai, brown bears, black bears and wolves prey upon moose calves. Lahndt said brown bears do the most damage, and, if their population is not controlled, peninsula residents are likely to note a significant decline in the moose population in the next few years.

Of bear-human conflicts, he said, “A bear lives by his nose. So we can learn to control and minimize those problems.”

Of bear-moose conflicts: “Predation is one of the things that bothers me most.”

Despite the fact that humans have killed 90 brown bears in just the last three years, “We’re not seeing any indication of the bear population declining.”

Hunting by the numbers

Lahndt believes that local biologists have their hands tied when it comes to predator control.

Although very little is written in stone, allowing for more harvesting of brown bears is problematic, according to Selinger.

In March 2007, the state Board of Game recommended that human-caused mortalities in units 7 and 15 be limited to 20 brown bears (no more than eight of them being females), up from a previous recommendation of 14 brown bears (no more than six of them being females). Selinger said he made the board’s recommendation his objective in managing bears.

Consequently, the department determined to hold a drawing and issue 25 hunting permits this year — up from 18 last year — in an attempt to meet that objective. The brown bear season would be broken into two parts, a fall hunt scheduled for October and November and a spring hunt scheduled for May.
The fall/spring hunting calendar overlaps the calendar for the Fish and Game harvest objective. As a result, the high number of 2008 human-caused mortalities could shut down the fall portion of the season, but not the spring portion. Permit holders who were denied a hunting opportunity this fall could hunt next spring.

However, if the department determines the brown bear population can sustain a fall hunt, despite a high number of human-caused mortalities, it can decide to allow a hunt, regardless — or at least a limited version of one.

Because of these policies, and a concern over the escalating numbers of defense of life and property shootings, Selinger said the department has issued nearly half of its permits for the more heavily human-populated western side of the peninsula.

“I think we can afford to harvest more bears around where people live,” he said. “But it’s not going to get us where we want to go with fewer bears running around town and causing problems and breaking into things.

“We’ve got all the private property issues. We’ve got no hunting or discharge of firearms in city limits, where a lot of the problems are occurring. And a majority of the bears causing problems in our urban areas are sows with offspring or sub¬¬adult bears. And none of those are targeted for hunting.”
Since brown bears are rarely harvested for their meat, most hunters are uninterested in younger, smaller bears. They want trophies.

“They want that 10-footer,” Selinger said.

The human factor

Urban areas pose the biggest problem because some bears are drawn in from the wilderness in search of easy spoils. According to Selinger, as long as food is readily available where people are, bears will continue their negative interactions with humans.

Larry Lewis, a Fish and Game wildlife technician, said bears, in general, find food through a process called “site habituation.” Bears find a reliable source of food in a particular area and come to associate that area with being fed. As a result, they return to that area again and again.

The habituation process can even be generational, Lewis said, as sows take their cubs to a food source, teaching the younger bears about the reliable site, and so the number of bears coming to a productive site tends to rise over time.

The Russian River confluence is a prime example of this process, Selinger said.

“In my mind, that’s a human-generated food source,” he said.

In addition to the enhanced runs of salmon as an attractant, bears flock to the Russian for the discarded carcasses, stringers of fresh sockeyes and food in backpacks — in addition to all the grills and coolers and picnic tables of food available in nearby campgrounds.

When the pickings are so easy, Lewis said, the bears can hardly stay away, despite the fact that it is “not a good survival strategy” for a wild animal to want to be around humans.

“A bear’s whole drive in the summer is to obtain and put on as much fat as it can, and to obtain their food with as little effort as they need to put into it, so they’re not burning off what they’re putting in,” Selinger said.

Consequently, until people begin to remove the incentives that draw bears near, bears will continue to pose a problem, Selinger said. “Nuisance bears” can be deterred by fairly simple measures, such as keeping garbage indoors, tightly securing any outdoor freezers or erecting electric-wire fences around chicken or pig pens.

People can’t prevent bears from occasionally wandering through, he said, but they can prevent them from having any reason to return or to stay.

Pucker up — Hockey moms don’t mind Palin’s humor

By Jenny Neyman
Redoubt Reporter

“You know what they say about the difference between a hockey mom and a pit bull?

“Lipstick,” according to Gov. Sarah Palin, in an unscripted line now famous from her speech accepting the vice presidential nomination to run with John McCain at the Republican National Convention on Sept. 3.

And what, exactly, makes a hockey mom? According to mothers at a Kenai Peninsula Hockey Association game at the Soldotna Sports Center on Sunday, it’s first and foremost dedication.

“It’s the dedication thing, for sure,” said Laurie Johnson, whose soon-to-be-16-year-old son, Eric Johnson, was skating for the Ice Hawks against an Anchorage team Sunday.

Betty Bea was sitting with Johnson in the stands above the rink. It’s a spot she’s well accustomed to, having been a hockey mom while her son, Johnny Bea, played hockey for Kenai Central when he was in high school, and played for the Alaska Aces in 1994. Now she’s sort of a hockey grandma and comes out to watch Eric play.

“On a (competition) team level it takes a lot of dedication to be at games, and be part of the team,” Bea said.

Bea said she isn’t a McCain supporter and she differs from Palin on issues like earmarks and abortion, but said she thinks Palin’s nomination is good for women.

“I’m not necessarily a Republican, but I think she could probably do the job,” Bea said. “I would like to see her with more experience, but she’s the governor, so that certainly qualifies her for the job she’d be doing.”

Being a hockey mom is a life experience in and of itself, and all experiences contribute to a person’s abilities.

“I don’t know if that qualifies her (to be vice president),” Bea said. “I don’t know that that qualifies me, but that’s experience.”

“And she’s right about the lipstick line,” she said. “We can get pretty aggressive.”

“A lot of people think there’s too much fighting — ” Bea said, interrupting herself to cheer for the Ice Hawks as they scored a goal. “ — but it’s really no different than any other sport.”

In Pam Johnson’s experience, being a hockey mom means being an expert juggler.

“You organize around your child’s schedule,” she said.

If you’re not at the hockey rink or driving to or from the hockey rink, you’re making sure your kids are eating and getting their homework done and getting sleep.

“You dress warm in the middle of the winter,” said Christie Stinnett, of Soldotna. Her son, Joshua, now a sophomore at Soldotna High School, has been playing hockey for eight or nine years now.

“And you make sure the kids have feet warmers in their boots so they don’t freeze,” Johnson, of Sterling, added. She was at the rink to watch her son, Tyler, also a sophomore at SoHi.

Johnson said she was excited about Palin’s nomination.

“I got a T-shirt that says ‘Go Sarah’ on it,” she said. “I think it’s awesome, period. Honestly, I think she’s done a lot for the state in the time she’s been a governor.”

She agrees with Palin’s quip.

“Hockey moms tend to be a little aggressive, but that’s beside the point,” she said.

Sitting above the rink, she carried on conversations, talked on a cell phone and drank her coffee, but her attention and vocal chords were primarily dedicated to the game.

“Go Ice Hawks!” she yelled at one point, followed with various exclamations of “Go!” “Watch him!” and other encouragements.

“… And we all think we can coach better than the coach,” she added to the list of a hockey mom’s description.

Mostly being a hockey mom means being devoted.

“Devotion to your kids. They need good sportsmanship, and aggressiveness, but you’ve got to juggle between them,” Johnson said.

There was no mistaking Dena Cunningham’s hockey mom status as she stood next to the boards Sunday, wearing a KPHA jacket with “Morgan’s mom” printed on the back and visibly cringing whenever her son was involved in a collision.

Cunningham said being a hockey mom isn’t any different than a soccer mom, or any sports parent who supports their child’s activity — except being a little more prepared for cold. For her, with 15-year-old Morgan, hockey has been a longtime devotion.

“I’m going to be sad when my son isn’t playing hockey anymore. You become a big family over the years. He’s been skating with them since the kids were 5. You get to know the families and siblings and watch the kids grow up,” she said.
Cunningham said she taped Palin’s speech and stayed up until 1 a.m. watching it.

“I think that since I’ve been aware of Sarah in the political arena in Alaska, I think she has done a great job for Alaska,” she said. “She’s well-spoken, I think she’s a straight shooter. I think she has so much energy, She’s positive. … I think her strong point is she’s a real person, not a career politician. You don’t have to wonder what spin she’s putting on something.”

She said she laughed when she heard Palin’s hockey mom remark.

“It was funny when I heard it. I wasn’t offended by it,” she said. “… It showed her tough side.”

Serving plenty — Soup supper fills bowls, peninsula food bank’s coffers

By Naomi Hagelund
For the Redoubt Reporter

Around 400 people will leave Saturday’s fundraiser for the Kenai Peninsula Food Bank with full bellies and empty bowls. The food bank is teaming up with local organizations and volunteers to host the 12th annual Soup Supper and Auction.

The supper starts at 5:30 p.m. at the Kenai Central High School cafeteria. For $40, ticket holders will fill up on locally made desserts, enjoy homemade soup in handmade bowls, bid on auction items and listen to live music.

Soup offerings are vegetarian-vegan, halibut chowder and chili made by various gourmet cooks in the community. There will be Cold Stone Creamery cakes and chocolate fountains, as well as $20 raffle tickets to win $2,000. The food bank is auctioning off items like a trip for two to the proposed Pebble Mine site, airline tickets and a pie made by Kenai Mayor Pat Porter.

All money from the event goes to fund food bank programs.

“It’s a major fundraiser,” said Linda Swarner, director of the food bank. “It’s a fifth of our budget.”

Swarner said that last year’s event raised more than $60,000, thanks to ticket sales and the help of sponsors. This year’s major sponsors include Chevron, BP, Tesoro and ASRC Energy Services.

Tickets are still available, but not for long. The event is usually sold out, Swarner said. Each attendee gets to take home one of the more than 400 unique bowls local artists handcrafted and donated to the event.

Only around a dozen potters are involved in making the donated bowls, said Charles LaForge, a member of the Kenai Potters Guild. Many hours go into the creation of these special bowls. There’s the process of making and trimming the bowls, then they go through one firing before they are glazed, after which they go through a second, 12-hour firing.

“If you were to sit down and throw a bowl on the wheel, it would probably just take a few minutes, but once you apply all the other techniques, it adds up to a lot of time,” LaForge said. “That one little bowl is handled quite a bit.”


The artists have been working since April, finishing most of the bowls in July. Most of the potters threw their bowls at home and built up an inventory early on, waiting to glaze and finish the products for another month or two.

The only thing the food bank requires of the artists is they make the bowls big enough to hold two cups of soup, LaForge said. Four hundred bowls can take up a lot of room, so they are not made very wide. They are crafted into more of a deep, traditional soup bowl.

Not only is the event an opportunity for the potters of the ¬guild to use their skill and time to help the community, it’s also a chance for them to experiment with new designs and glaze techniques.

“All the bowls are in a different style that represents the style of the potter,” LaForge said. “They all put their individual decoration or glaze techniques on the bowls.”

The auction also is a chance for the Kenai Potter’s Guild to get a little advertising.

“We get our name out there, and our product through that,” LaForge said. “We have a show sometime during the year, and hopefully people remember us.”

Closed for business, open for fun — Soldotna chamber event draws after-hours crowds

By Jenny Neyman
Redoubt Reporter

Posted hours went out the window Sept. 3 at the Ischi Mall along the Sterling Highway in Soldotna, as more than 100 people showed up after 5 p.m. to see what the businesses had to offer.

Alaska DigiTel Wireless, AK Express Tags/Titles and Registrations, Dairy Queen, GCI and Edward Jones-Ryan Kapp, joined forces to host a Business After Hours event, sponsored by the Soldotna Chamber of Commerce.

The intent of the program is to get people out to businesses and facilitate networking among business owners and the community. It’s more about socializing than sales, although sales might be a result of showing off what a business has to offer.

“If you have a business in town, it’s a great way to showcase the business and location, generate traffic and get to know some people,” said Ryan Kapp, Soldotna chamber president.

“We got good feedback,” he said of the 140 or so visitors who stopped in at his store. “More than anything we got to meet some new folks. That’s what it was all about for me.”

Michelle Glaves, chamber director, said the Business After Hours program has been resurrected after it fizzled out years ago. The chamber has started a new ambassadors program, which gives local business owners an opportunity to help promote the chamber, even if they don’t necessarily have enough time to serve on the chamber board.

“They basically promote the chamber in different ways, talk to businesses who are members but haven’t taken advantage of all the things we can do for them, or aren’t members and spread the word on the different things we can do to market for them and that we can offer,” Glaves said.

In the after-hours program, a business will sign up to host an event, usually in the 5 to 7 p.m. range. The chamber promotes the event and the business provides the draw for people to attend, like food or door prizes.

At the Sept. 3 event, all the mall vendors teamed up to host an event together.

“It’s a little harder for small businesses to have 120 people in their building, so everybody decided to do it together and have a block party. So we ordered some good weather and got a tent out and did it as a little bit of a round-table kind of thing,” Glaves said.

One business provided veggies, another was in charge of drinks, one brought soup, one had cake. Dairy Queen had a barbecue going outside. And each donated items for door prizes — a Blackberry phone, 20,000 Alaska Airlines miles, some barbecue and gardening tool sets, a cell phone, Tesoro gas cards and gift cards for assorted DQ goodies.

Visitors went from store to store, getting a card punched to be eligible for the drawing, and met under the tent outside for food and socializing. Some attendants were business owners and/or chamber members, and others were just curious members of the community.

“There seemed to be a really nice cross section,” Kapp said. “Some folks saw the tent and free food and decided to stop in, which is fine.”

This is the third Business After Hours put on so far this year. One was at Wells Fargo. The other was at Central Peninsula Hospital with tours of the new wing before it opened to the public. Glaves said they plan to hold one a month, with a hiatus in midwinter.

“All the businesses that have done it really came through,” Glaves said. “There was good networking and everyone had a good time. At this rate there’s no reason why it can’t keep continuing.”