Ketchikan has job potential. Alaska had 21 years of job gains up until 2009. After a year without, Alaska added 1,800 jobs in 2010 and 5,200 in 2011, according to the Alaska Department of Labor.

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Former Ketchikan resident Mike Thomas, 47, died Dec. 20, 2011, in Mohave, Ariz. He was born in Salem, Ore., on Nov. 25, 1964, but was raised in Ketchikan.

Ketchikan loves football.

It's talked about year-round - the preseason, the season, the game of the week, Monday Night Football, the Super Bowl. Often said during the summer is: "I can't wait for the football season to start." It's either that or a comment about Brett Favre's latest retirement and how long it will last. The number of community gatherings around the topic of football is countless.

A Ketchikan football fan's greatest joy is to be able to take in a game in Seattle, San Francisco, San Diego or Oakland - maybe a game farther from home coincides with a business trip and can become part of the itinerary. There's nothing like going to a professional game. It's exciting and no hot dog or soda tastes better than one eaten in the stands at a football game. No afternoon is as fun; no game is as "good."

Unless, you've been to a Ketchikan High School football game lately. You'd be surprised, whether you like football or not.

The Kayhi Kings are coached by Steve McLaren, who is in his third year. That means he's been around long enough to start developing tradition, and a sense of continuity. It's very important to not have constant upheaval when you're trying to build a football program.

A testament to the growing strength of the program is a bigger turnout than usual for the team, probably about 10 more players than in most years.

The Kings work hard. In the practices, every time they end with 20-25 minutes of really hard cardio work. They never complain, and they all finish the drills (even if it's at their own speed). Players who are struggling often are cheered along by their teammates, and on some occasions those who have finished the drills go back and complete the drill again so their teammate wouldn't have to do it alone. From a character perspective, that's darn good.

Kayhi was much more competitive last season than in the season before (dropping its average margin of defeat from 45.4 points to 11.4), and right now the Kings are 1-1 (despite a 37-0 blowout two weeks ago against Houston). They won their season opener 26-24 at home against Delta Junction.

For the first time (in its second year of existence), the Southeast Conference, which includes Kayhi, Sitka and Thunder Mountain of Juneau, has a berth in the small-school playoffs. That shows that Southeast is at least getting credit for being a real conference. It's an accomplishment because Southeast often has been seen as an area that can't even get its teams through a full season because of lack of numbers, ineligible players and the like.

This year, Kayhi is playing on the new turf field at Fawn Mountain Elementary School. The community put considerable effort into that field, and it is an accomplishment greatly appreciated by the football program that started by playing on gravel and rocks.

Playing conditions in Ketchikan underscore the love of the game here. Not many teams would play on gravel and in a torrential downpour, which the team can attest occurred in past seasons.

The conditions aren't better only for the team, but fans will find that games at Fawn Mountain are much more fun. It's possible to stand along the sidelines and really be able to see what's going on on the field. The action doesn't get any closer than that for fans.

It's also possible to walk around the track on the field's perimeter while watching the game.

But what you really get caught up in, and what won't allow you to tear yourself away even if you intend to take in only a quarter of play, is the football atmosphere. It's all there, just like at the pro games, just like in Seattle. It's football in the best sense of the word.

Despite whatever the score turns out to be for the Kings this weekend, a team that demonstrates such character while providing a football experience of an increasing caliber speaks volumes for its members and their contribution to this community.

Their conference season opener against Juneau's Thunder Mountain starts at 6 p.m. Saturday.

No football fan should miss it.