04/15/12 - 8:31am
KETCHIKAN (AP) — A group of 11 dark heads bent over yellow cedar Native Alaska paddle replicas this past Wednesday in Schoenbar Middle School’s shop, as Gero-Kanayama exchange students sanded the wood in preparation for painting.
Local Native Master Carver Nathan Jackson was advising and troubleshooting, with chaperone and 1982 Ketchikan High School graduate Tony Hatano-Worrell stepping in to translate questions or answers. Hatano-Worrell is raising his two children with his wife, Toshimi, in an area north of Kanayama. He has been an English teacher there for nearly 19 years.
