FAIRBANKS — A record crowd packed the Carlson Center Wednesday to attend Golden Valley Electric Association’s annual members’ meeting, with a steady stream of speakers battering the utility for high electric rates and a lack of vision.

The meeting drew nearly 1,900 members, and the theme from the beginning was the high cost of energy and how to bring it under control. Even before dozens of members began lining up to deliver comments, GVEA director Ron Bergh told the often-rowdy crowd that their concerns had come across “loud and clear.”

FAIRBANKS — Soon after prospectors began searching for gold around Livengood more than a century ago, a distinctive 1,800-foot-tall hilltop in the area was given a hopeful name: Money Knob.

But despite the persistence of countless placer miners, Money Knob never delivered the mother lode. Their instinct for gold was right, it turns out, but not necessarily their timing.

The prospect is peppered heavily with gold — more than 20 million ounces of it, by the latest estimate — but it’s scattered throughout the rock in microscopic quantities.

FAIRBANKS — Filing for an Alaska Permanent Fund dividend check is a happy ritual for most Alaskans, but this year some residents have been a little too eager to get their paperwork in the mail.

The Alaska Department of Revenue has received hundreds of applications this week for the 2012 PFD and expects as many as 1,000 could arrive in Juneau by the end of the year.

That prompt attention comes with a drawback: Applications aren’t valid unless they’re signed and delivered after Jan. 1.

FAIRBANKS — University of Alaska President Pat Gamble winces a bit at the topic, describing it as a “head-hurting kind of problem.”

When temperatures get cold this winter, the thing that will give Gamble restless sleep won’t necessarily be graduation rates or tight budgets. Gamble will be wondering whether nearly every building on the Fairbanks campus can maintain its heat and power.