HUD awards nearly $800,000 for employment training

ANCHORAGE (AP) -- Two campuses at the University of Alaska Fairbanks have been awarded nearly $800,000 for job training.

The university's Bristol Bay Campus has joined with the Bristol Bay Housing Authority, Alaska Works, and tribal governments to form a partnership to provide other means of employment to compensate for the decline in the red salmon commercial fishing industry.

Approximately half the money will be used to provide employment training to residents of six Bristol Bay regional communities. The communities are Twin Hills, Pilot Point, Ugashik, Port Heiden, Chignik Lake and Chignik Bay.

People enrolled in the training program will be taught housing construction, and renovation and maintenance skills, as well as maintenance of telecommunications.

The Interior-Aleutian Campus will receive the remaining money to renovate two historic buildings and turn them into local museums. The first schoolhouse in McGrath will house the Tochak Museum, and an Episcopalian mission in Anvik will house the Anvik Museum.