Years Ago

Published 9:30 pm Wednesday, January 14, 2026

20 years ago

Rumors of an erupting Augustine Volcano sparked a flow of calls from worried citizens to the Homer police and fire departments on Jan. 5. But that was then. At 4:44 a.m. Wednesday, Augustine Volcano erupted, and then blew again at 5:15 a.m. Scientists called the eruptions minor. No monitoring stations on the island were damaged. The two explosions produced an ash plume that reached 30,000 feet and drifted northeast and northwest about 30 miles by daylight Wednesday. Except for a false report in Clam Gulch that later turned out to be ice fog, no communities reported ash falling on the Kenai Peninsula, said Scott Walden, emergency management coordinator for the Kenai Peninsula Borough’s Office of Emergency Management.

— From the issue of Jan. 12, 2006

30 years ago

Parents who find modern elementary school classrooms unfamiliar these days shouldn’t worry, experts say. A decade from now they’ll be downright alien. Homer-area students in 2006 will be working in the fully wired world of the 21st century cyberschool, linked to their peers around the world and with the Library of Congress and more virtually at their fingertips, said Phil Biggs, technology coordinator for the Kenai Peninsula Borough School District. That may seem a dream to teachers in Kenai Peninsula schools today. Only bake sales, the frugal use of meager budgets and inventive salvage jobs on aging machinery keeps computers in the hands of students. And unfortunately, the future won’t be cheap.

— From the issue of Jan. 11, 1996