For some students at Thunder Mountain High School, learning the five mother sauces is as basic as the traditional reading, writing and arithmetic — these are the students who can be found taking any of the culinary classes from teacher Patrick Roach, including classes on nutrition, culinary arts and contemporary cuisine.

Hi Juneau, it’s been a rough couple weeks for many of us. If the crowd at the Newman boys’ memorial was any indicator, I might estimate there are thousands of us in pain right now. More now that we’ve heard news of Jimmy’s passing as well. For some, it’s the pain of seeing someone die before their time. For some of us, it’s the pain of losing a friend. And it’s a really bad kind of pain.

For the week after I found out about the boat accident, I wrote letters in my head to Casey, eventually writing some on paper.

Let’s play a word game. When you hear mention of Afghanistan, what is the first thing you think of? Is it war? Jerry Smetzer might think differently. He was a Peace Corps Volunteer in Kandahar, Afghanistan during a time of peace in 1968 to 1969. He experienced the land, the people, the culture and history first-hand, and not on a tour of duty as many see it today.

After a seven-year hiatus spurred by questionable content and sealed by the popularity of another student publication, the J-Bird is back. The Juneau-Douglas High School student newspaper, first seen as early as the 1920s, has been revived by 16-year-old Sam Kurland, a senior at the high school and the publication’s editor-in-chief. With the support of English department chair Carol Jordan, Kurland and a group of his peers have been on the high school beat since August, though the ambitious teen had begun efforts in the previous school year.