6th Grade Class Picture--1970

William F. Prisk Elementary School 1970

Front Row: Cindy Taylor, Susan Coulter, Mark LaRowe, Danny Larsen, Dana Roach, Bobbie Howell, Karen Clouse, Susan Montgomery, Ann Riggins, Steve Nelson

Middle Row: Lisa Bennett, Lori Henry, Brad Smith, Bill Cook, Michelle Lennotte, Twyla Starky, Rick Hart, David Keuther, Paul Charles, Mark Malone, Alan Darrow

Back Row: Mrs. Krogstad, Linda McDonald, Liz Baker, Antonette G, Ann Megna, Elaina Smelnavich, Lynn Hopewell, Julie Wiggins, Diane Dahms, Joyce Slope, Forrest Freed, Bill Dager, Russell Keene, Terri Reynolds

From an eye doc point of view this was interesting. We had some that wore glasses. Then at the end of the school year we were going to Camp Hi-Hill for our 6th grade camp. We had to have a "physical" with the school nurse. I failed the eye test as did about half the class. By the time we went to camp a bunch more us us had glasses. I thought it was odd at the time, but after learning of the development of the eye in optometry school it was logical. The eyes grow in size and about 10-13 it can get to a point that the become nearsighted.

Devil's Club-The Adversary

While being a very useful plant...especially to the Alaska natives...Devil's Club is wicked for the unsuspecting.

Depending on which part is used you can get tea, oils, juice, etc. from it. I have a patient on Prince of Wales Island who make gallons of juice and claims it will help diabetes and even cancer.

I usually don't post eye pictures here, but this patient was too interesting. He was flown in to the clinic in Klawock from a logging camp.

He had been hit in the face with Devil's Club while walking in the woods. His eye was red, light sensitive, watery, and hurt. Eventually, Jason Barnes a 4th year optometry student

who worked with me that week flipped over the upper eye lid and we found a bit of a thorn of the plant.

When I went to pull it out...it wouldn't move. Then we found the other end of the thorn on the outside of the lid. So it had penetrated the eye lid. We had to send him to an ophthalmologist in Juneau. The thorn scratched the front of the eye every time he blinked or moved his eye. Here is the Wikipedia article on Devil's Club.

Devil's Club is also a good looking plant. It grow pretty tall, has big leaves which are a bright yellow in the fall, and produces bright red berries in the fall.

So avoid it.