Alaska

Bethel’s first car show is a blast from Alaska’s past

Published

1 year ago

July 28, 2023

Bethel’s first car show is a blast from Alaska’s past

Cars line the parking lot of NAPA Auto Parts for Bethel’s first car show. (Josiah Swope/KYUK)

Gary Baldwin prefers to find parts for his teal 1953 Willys Jeep pickup truck rather than buying them. It shows when he pops the hood.

“There’s a lot of parts from different vehicles from the dump in here,” Baldwin said. “This air cleaner is out of a Toyota. The cable for the throttle is a Subaru cable. The gas pedal is a Chevy truck.”

This classic was the car of a former principal in the Lower Kuskokwim School District in the 1970s, who would drive it on the local trails when the snow wasn’t too deep. Baldwin inherited it in the ’90s.

“People tell me it was driven to Quinhagak, and I know it used to be driven back and forth between Nunapitchuk because he worked in both of those villages,” Baldwin said.

Baldwin, who was the LKSD superintendent, said that he drove it daily until he retired.

Henry Peter said that his wife learned to drive on that same model. Peter was born in a log cabin in Kasigluk, a village west of Bethel. He first saw more vehicles when he came to Bethel in 1966.

“When I grew up, there was hardly no drive, no cars,” Peter said. “And those old-time snowmachines.”

It takes a lot of work for a car lover to maintain a vehicle in Bethel, and that’s a big part of why Alaska State Trooper Zack Huckstep decided to organize the city’s first car show.

Huckstep showed up with his 1971 Toyota Brown, which is basically a Land Cruiser. On the morning of the show, he converted its flatbed into a temporary playpen so that he could keep his toddler under control while he did some last-minute polishing.

Visitors who peeked inside got to see its long leather seats — and a perfect LEGO replica of the vehicle.

“Did I tell you about the LEGO garage?” Huckstep asked. “So, I didn’t want to geek out too much, but I actually have, like, a LEGO garage with, like, all the tools, and a garage, and a lift and everything for that LEGO truck.”

a LEGO car — A LEGO replica of Zack Huckstep’s Toyota Brown. (Josiah Swope/KYUK)

That LEGO garage is actually the only one Huckstep owns. He doesn’t have a life-size one in Bethel. And that has been a problem because Bethel’s dust storms can wreck a paint job. Replacement paint, like everything else that makes its way to town, isn’t cheap. Neither is getting these vehicles to Bethel.

“It was shipped from Australia all the way to, I believe, San Diego. And the funny thing was is it was actually cheaper to ship from Australia to America than it was to ship from Anchorage to Bethel,” Huckstep said.

NAPA Auto Parts, the only car parts shop in town, welcomed the car show. And it was a team effort. Alaska Commercial Company donated hot dogs and hamburgers, then NAPA employees grilled them for visitors.

It wasn’t just cars that showed up. There was a brand new four-wheeler, one of the more popular vehicles in the region, and a cherry-red Vespa.

Trooper Elondre Johnson entered his vehicle to support Huckstep. He had additions, including a panel of fluorescent lights for when he drives to villages on the frozen river in winter.

“Alaska is a dark place,” said Johnson. “And so anytime we get kind of get off-road, running down the river where things are really dark, it’s nice to have the extra lighting.”

Don Roberts brought arguably the most practical vehicle: a new Bobcat. For the show, he put a 6-foot long snowblower on the front of it, which he’s used to plow 20 feet of blown snow off friends’ houses along the tundra. But Roberts said that there are probably 75 different tools he can swap into that spot.

“God there’s so much. There’s numerous attachments,” said Roberts. “You can put grass cutters on here, posthole diggers, backhoes will go on it. Anything that will go on a on a tractor will go on the front of this. I can’t name all of them. There’s just so many things that will go on this.”

But it was Jimmy Guinn who brought the showstopper: A giant, shiny, sun-yellow truck from 1942. He said that it was a rare find because most of them were shipped off in WWII. He had it shipped up from Seattle. It rarely leaves the garage. It was easy to admire the inside, with its yellow and black stripes and a classic dashboard, but many were struck by how well-maintained it was.

a truck — The interior of Jimmy Guinn’s rare yellow 1942 Ford 1-Ton. (Josiah Swope/KYUK)

“The reason why I like it is because it’s almost impossible to keep things clean,” said Ava, an 11-year-old spectator. “I wonder how they even got here without getting it dirty.”

“Yeah. This is beautiful,” agreed city mechanic Eddie Fenn. “Oh, this is beautiful. Like a Tonka toy.”

But as much as the Alaskans appreciated the sunny vintage vehicle’s uncanny shine, they’re suckers for trucks.

“The big yellow ’43 truck is by far, you know, the most spectacular,” said Iskandar Alexandar, who works in behavioral health at the Yukon-Kuskokwim Health Corporation.

“But I actually feel the best in choice, I voted for this one more kind of conventional-looking guy. [Because] if you just had a suitcase full of money, you could go and buy that off the shelf yourself and imagine yourself driving it. And, you know, it’s Alaska,” Alexandar added. “Chicks dig trucks.”

In the end, when all of the votes were counted, Guinn’s truck won Best in Show.

car show winners — From the left, Jimmy Guinn won first place, Best in Show and People’s Choice. Gary Baldwin won third place, Rick Cunningham won fourth place, Curtis Robinett won Best Truck and Skyler Kingley won fifth place. On the far right, organizer Zack Huckstep won second place and Best 4×4. (Josiah Swope/KYUK)

“Don’t run away too far, Jimmy,” Huckstep said from the megaphone as Guinn collected a bucket of car repair goods donated by NAPA Auto Parts. “You also ended up with People’s Choice and first place.”

Still, Guinn said that the best part of the day was getting to hang out with all of the other gearheads in town.

“All these cars have just lots of love in them,” Guinn said. “Doesn’t matter if they’re beat up, or if they’re brand new or whatever, that owners really love every one of them. So that’s what makes owning a car like this fun, because everybody cares.”

Guinn didn’t even bring his favorite car. It’s metallic gold, with grills in the front and nuggets on the license plate. It seems like a strong contender for another set of awards next year, but who knows what other cars might roll up then.

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Alaska

Federal funds will help DOT study wildlife crashes on Glenn Highway

Published

6 hours ago

January 15, 2025

Press Room

Federal funds will help DOT study wildlife crashes on Glenn Highway

New federal funds will help Alaska’s Department of Transportation develop a plan to reduce vehicle collisions with wildlife on one of the state’s busiest highways.

The U.S. Transportation Department gave the state a $626,659 grant in December to conduct a wildlife-vehicle collision study along the Glenn Highway corridor stretching between Anchorage’s Airport Heights neighborhood to the Glenn-Parks Highway interchange.

Over 30,000 residents drive the highway each way daily.

Mark Eisenman, the Anchorage area planner for the department, hopes the study will help generate new ideas to reduce wildlife crashes on the Glenn Highway.

“That’s one of the things we’re hoping to get out of this is to also have the study look at what’s been done, not just nationwide, but maybe worldwide,” Eisenman said. “Maybe where the best spot for a wildlife crossing would be, or is a wildlife crossing even the right mitigation strategy for these crashes?”

Eisenman said the most common wildlife collisions are with moose. There were nine fatal moose-vehicle crashes on the highway between 2018 and 2023. DOT estimates Alaska experiences about 765 animal-vehicle collisions annually.

In the late 1980s, DOT lengthened and raised a downtown Anchorage bridge to allow moose and wildlife to pass underneath, instead of on the roadway. But Eisenman said it wasn’t built tall enough for the moose to comfortably pass through, so many avoid it.

DOT also installed fencing along high-risk areas of the highway in an effort to prevent moose from traveling onto the highway.

Moose typically die in collisions, he said, and can also cause significant damage to vehicles. There are several signs along the Glenn Highway that tally fatal moose collisions, and he said they’re the primary signal to drivers to watch for wildlife.

“The big thing is, the Glenn Highway is 65 (miles per hour) for most of that stretch, and reaction time to stop when you’re going that fast for an animal jumping onto the road is almost impossible to avoid,” he said.

The city estimates 1,600 moose live in the Anchorage Bowl.

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Alaska

Flight attendant sacked for twerking on the job: ‘What’s wrong with a little twerk before work’

Published

14 hours ago

January 15, 2025

Press Room

Flight attendant sacked for twerking on the job: ‘What’s wrong with a little twerk before work’

They deemed the stunt not-safe-for-twerk.

An Alaska Airlines flight attendant who was sacked for twerking on camera has created a GoFundMe to support her while she seeks a new berth.

The crewmember, named Nelle Diala, had filmed the viral booty-shaking TikTok video on the plane while waiting two hours for the captain to arrive, A View From the Wing reported.

She captioned the clip, which also blew up on Instagram, “ghetto bih till i D-I-E, don’t let the uniform fool you.”

Diala was reportedly doing a victory dance to celebrate the end of her new hire probationary period.

Unfortunately, her jubilation was short-lived as Alaska Airlines nipped her employment in the bum just six months into her contract.

The fanny-wagging flight attendant feels that she didn’t do anything wrong.

Diala has since reposted the twerking clip with the new caption: “Can’t even be yourself anymore, without the world being so sensitive. What’s wrong with a little twerk before work, people act like they never did that before.”

The new footage was hashtagged #discriminationisreal.

The disgraced stewardess even set up a GoFundMe page to help support the so-called “wrongfully fired” flight attendant until she can land a new flight attendant gig.

“I never thought a single moment would cost me everything,” wrote the ex-crewmember. “Losing my job was devastating.”

She claimed that the gig had allowed her to meet new people and see the world, among other perks.

While air hostessing was ostensibly a “dream job,” Diala admitted that she used the income to help fund her “blossoming lingerie and dessert businesses,” which she runs under the Instagram handles @cakezncake (which doesn’t appear to have any content?) and @figure8.lingerie.

As of Wednesday morning, the crowdfunding campaign has raised just $182 of its $12,000 goal.

Diala was ripped online for twerking on the job as well as her subsequent GoFundMe efforts.

“You don’t respect the uniform, you don’t respect your job then,” declared one critic on the popular aviation-focused Instagram page The Crew Lounge. “Terms and Conditions apply.”

“‘Support for wrongly fired flight attendant??’” mocked another. “Her GoFund title says it all. She still thinks she was wrongly fired. Girl you weren’t wrongly fired. Go apply for a new job and probably stop twerking in your uniform.”

“The fact that you don’t respect your job is one thing but doing it while in uniform and at work speaks volumes,” scoffed a third. “You’re the brand ambassador and it’s not a good look.”

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Alaska

As Alaska sees a spike in Flu cases — another virus is on the rise in the U.S.

Published

22 hours ago

January 15, 2025

Press Room

As Alaska sees a spike in Flu cases — another virus is on the rise in the U.S.

FAIRBANKS, Alaska (KTUU) – Alaska has recently seen a rise in both influenza and respiratory syncytial virus, better known as RSV. Amidst the spike in both illnesses, norovirus has also been on the rise in the United States. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) says it’s highly contagious and hand sanitizers don’t work well against it.

Current data for Alaska shows 449 influenza cases and 262 RSV cases for the week of Jan. 4. Influenza predominantly impacts the Kenai area, the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta, and the Northwest regions of the state. RSV is also seeing significant activity in the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta and Anchorage.

Both are respiratory viruses that are treatable, but norovirus — which behaves like the stomach flu according to the CDC — is seeing a surge at the national level. It “causes acute gastroenteritis, an inflammation of the stomach or intestines,” as stated on the CDC webpage.

This virus is spread through close contact with infected people and surfaces, particularly food.

“Basically any place that people aggregate in close quarters, they’re going to be especially at risk,” said Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN’s Chief Medical Correspondent.

Preventing infection is possible but does require diligence. Just using hand sanitizer “does not work well against norovirus,” according to the CDC. Instead, the CDC advises washing your hands with soap and hot water for at least 20 seconds. When preparing food or cleaning fabrics — the virus “can survive temperatures as high as 145°F,” as stated by the CDC.

According to Dr. Gupta, its proteins make it difficult to kill, leaving many cleaning methods ineffective. To ensure a given product can kill the virus, he advises checking the label to see if it claims it can kill norovirus. Gupta said you can also make your own “by mixing bleach with water, 3/4 of a cup of bleach per gallon of water.”

For fabrics, it’s best to clean with water temperatures set to hot or steam cleaning at 175°F for five minutes.

As for foods, it’s best to throw out any items that might have norovirus. As a protective measure, it’s best to cook oysters and shellfish to a temperature greater than 145°F.

Based on Alaska Department of Health data, reported COVID-19 cases are significantly lower than this time last year.

See a spelling or grammatical error? Report it to web@ktuu.com

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