State Briefs
Murkowski hosts rally in Juneau
JUNEAU - Republican gubernatorial candidate Frank Murkowski stopped in Juneau on Friday evening on a two-day tour that took him to Valdez, Sitka, Ketchikan, Galena and Fairbanks.
To an audience of about 100 supporters, Murkowski said his campaign is peaking dramatically because Alaskans want a change. He said he could serve Alaskans better as governor than senator, and would work to make state government more responsive and to build the economy.
Under a Murkowski administration, the state would more aggressively market Alaska salmon, he said.
He said marketing of Alaska seafood should be similar to advertising strategies such as ExxonMobil's "tiger in your tank" ads.
"When you go to a gas station you see three pumps. ... You don't buy regular, you don't buy premium, you buy a tiger in your tank if you want to go home with performance," he said. "That's what we've got to do with our wild salmon."
Murkowski said he would work to develop more oil production and build more roads. Throughout the campaign Murkowski has said he supports construction of a road connecting Juneau with the rest of Alaska's highway system.
"That's one of the things that's fun about campaigning," Murkowski said. "We've been all over the state, and that's a big issue. But the issue is should it be a road in or a road out. I'm going to leave that up to you folks."
Off the trail: Iditarod sled dog lost in Juneau
JUNEAU - Fairbanks musher Christopher Knott is asking for help in finding a lost dog in Juneau that has raced in the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race.
Lybra, a 45-pound blond dog with brown eyes, is about 4 years old and has a scar on her front leg. She is an Alaskan husky, crossed with a hound.
Knott loaned Lybra to a friend for tours in Juneau this summer, but the dog slipped her collar at the Juneau Airport in August, he said.
"She just got spooked and took off," he said Friday. "I just found out about it three days ago. She is a dog that has run in the Iditarod and the Yukon Quest. We raised her from a pup and she spent time inside, so she's kind of special to us."
Call Knott at 866-456-6066 toll free with information. He is offering a reward if the dog is returned.
Outhouse makes history in Sputnik sighting
FAIRBANKS - The site of Dexter Stegemeyer's old outhouse now sports a plaque designating it as a historic place.
Fairbanks scientists Neil Davis and Neal Brown visited the landmark off Miller Hill Road and installed the plaque in mid-October, according to the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner.
It all goes back to the morning of Oct. 6, 1957, when Stegemeyer was in his outhouse and all was well with the world. The door was open. As he looked up in the sky, he witnessed the dawn of a new age.
"Mr. Stegemeyer said he was just sitting there enjoying the beauty of the stars twinkling in the sky when he saw a strange moving star come up out of the west," Davis wrote about his neighbor who lived west of the University of Alaska. "From its speed and uniform passage across the sky, he knew it could not be an airplane, a meteor or any other familiar phenomena."
What Stegemeyer saw that morning was the Sputnik I satellite as it orbited the Earth. The launch of Sputnik signaled the start of the Space Age.
That same morning, scientists at the Geophysical Institute spotted Sputnik and for 20 years they were credited with being the first people in the Western Hemisphere to see a man-made satellite.
But Davis says Stegemeyer was first.
"His was the first sighting since he did see Sputnik lower in the western sky than did those at the Geophysical Institute."
The satellite, 22 inches in diameter, beeped its way around the world for most of that month and re-entered the Earth's atmosphere and burned up in early 1958.
Man who exposed himself gets a year in jail
ANCHORAGE - A man arrested in February for exposing himself to half a dozen girls has been sentenced to a year in jail.
Michael G. Brown, 28, also was ordered to undergo sex offender treatment and to register as a sex offender. He will be on probation for three years after his release.
Brown told the girls he was a photographer and engaged them in conversation, according to charging documents. He then would take photos of the girls and expose himself and masturbate. When the girls tried to leave, he would sometimes maneuver himself or his car to block their escape.
The crimes occurred between September 2001 and February 2002.
DNA frees man accused of rape
ANCHORAGE - An Anchorage man has been freed after DNA evidence showed he wasn't the person who raped a 19-year-old student.
Joseph Coolidge Jr., 36, was jailed in late September on charges that he raped and choked a student on the campus of the University of Alaska Anchorage. He spent 10 days behind bars.
University police now say DNA evidence shows they had the wrong man.
"We had two witnesses who positively identified him. We're very grateful for the DNA technology and that an innocent person didn't have to spend any more time in jail than he did," said UAA Police Chief Dale Pittman.
Semen was collected from the victim, and police were able to get a DNA profile from it. When the DNA was put into a database, it came back with a match for Michael Arthur Stephan, 34, who has five indecent exposure convictions on his record, police say.
Stephan was charged with first-degree sexual assault Oct. 11. His trial is set for Jan. 20.