School Board Candidate Forum At Chamber Luncheon
Weekly luncheons are held every Wednesday at noon. Enjoy great food, dynamic speakers, and exciting networking opportunities. Chamber luncheons are open to the public. Chamber members receive special member-only pricing.
Executive Lunch Sponsor
Russell's
Upgrade to the Executive Lunch and receive VIP treatment including cookies and special prize drawings.
Speaker
Stephen Courtright, Sitka School Board Candidate
Lon Garrison, Incumbent Sitka School Board Candidate
Biography
Stephen Courtright is a professional educator and family man who has called Sitka home for the past three years. He and his wife are actively engaged with KCAW, the SEER School, and UAS-Sitka and have spent time working at a variety of Lincoln Street businesses as well as Mt. Edgecumbe High School. His two young children, ages 4 and 6, love living and playing in Sitka and thrive in a safe community where they can explore their boundaries. From the first minute that the family drove off of the Columbia on a foggy day, Sitka has been the only home they can imagine for their futures.
Lon Garrison I grew up on a small cattle ranch 70 miles southeast of Denver, Colorado. I was actively involved in 4H as a youth and participated in activities ranging from horsemanship, to raising beef and sheep to livestock judging. I attended Douglas County High School in Castle Rock, Colorado.
I graduated with a B.S. in Fishery Biology from Colorado State University in 1986. While at CSU, I became an avid rugby player for the next 8 years. It was as a freshman in college that I first came to Alaska in the summer of 1981 as a volunteer for the US Forest Service on the Seward Ranger District. After my first summer in Seward, I knew Alaska would be my home. During my undergraduate career I worked for 6 seasons as a fisheries technician on the Seward Ranger District and spent one winter as a foreign fisheries observer on Japanese and Polish trawlers in the Bering Sea. That same year, I spent 1 semester at the University of Edinburgh, in Edinburgh Scotland studying fisheries in that part of the world.
I attended graduate school at the University of Vermont (UVM) where I studied the winter smelt fishery on Lake Champlain. It was at UVM that I met my wife Litia who was a graduate student in the zoology department. In 1988 I was fortunate to be hired by NSRAA, to fill a new fishery biologist position in Haines, Alaska where I lived and worked until 1994. I owned and operated a feed and farm supply store with my family in Salida, Colorado for a couple of years in the mid-90's. After missing Alaska far too much and we returned in 1996 when I was hired by Douglas Island Pink and Chum (DIPAC) as the hatchery biologist at the remote Snettisham Sockeye Hatchery 40 miles SE of Juneau. In 1998 I took the position as Hatchery Manager at the Port Armstrong Hatchery on the southern end of Baranof Island until 2001 when we moved to Sitka and I returned to work for NSRAA. Since my return to NSRAA I have worked as a field projects biologist, managed the Hidden Falls Hatchery and Medvejie Hatchery and served as the operations manager. In 2011, I left NSRAA to join the Sitka Sound Science Center as the Aquaculture Director, a position I currently hold. My wife Litia, works for SEARHC as a grant director in the Community Health Services program. I have two wonderful and talented daughters; each graduated from Sitka High in 2008 and 2011. My daughters were home schooled until we moved to Sitka in 2001, and both have thrived and excelled in the Sitka school system.
I would like to continue to serve as a member of the Sitka School Board because I deeply care about our children's education. I am a strong advocate for public schools and am grateful for the excellent education I received as a youth and my daughters are now receiving. I feel my past experience serving on boards and commissions (Haines Borough Planning Commission Chairman) and working for a private, nonprofit organization led by a board of directors has prepared me well for participating on the school board.
Images
Date and Time
Wednesday Sep 11, 2013
12:00 PM - 1:00 PM AKDT
Location
The Westmark Sitka Banquet Room
330 Seward Street
Sitka, AK 99835
Fees/Admission
$15 Full Meal (Members Only)
$18 Full Meal (Non-Member)
$5 Listening Fee (Includes Drinks)
Executive Lunch Upgrade
$20 Full Meal
$10 Listening Fee (Includes Drinks)
Pre-Paid Lunch Punch Cards
5% Discount Available For Members Only
$114 Eight (8) Pre-Paid Lunches
$228 Sixteen (16) Pre-Paid Lunches
*Weekly Luncheons are open to the public. Chamber membership is not required to attend.
Website
Contact Information
Sitka Chamber
(907) 747-8604
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