JDHS wrestling team's travel delays make national publication
Members of Juneau's Musarra family have been able to board commercial airplanes with relative ease since last spring. But the troubles they had in 2001 and 2002 are still finding their way into the national media.
After Sept. 11, 2001, the computer system at Alaska Airlines mistakenly read the Musarra name as that of a suspected terrorist. Harold Koh, a professor of law at Yale University, cited the family's traveling difficulties, specifically those of Sungie, Larry and Lenee' Musarra's middle son, in the Oct. 30 issue of the Economist magazine.
"The entire high-school wrestling team of Juneau, Alaska, was held up at airports seven times just because one member was the son of a retired Coast Guard officer on the FBI watch-list," Koh wrote. Sungie Musarra and the rest of the team were delayed eight times last year, said assistant coach Lee Kadinger.
Repeated attempts to have the red flags on the Musarra name removed failed until last spring, when the Wall Street Journal ran an article on the family's predicament. The wrestling team took the delays in stride, said Kadinger.