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.

Read more...

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.

As we congratulate Joe Miller on his GOP primary election victory, we must thank Sen. Lisa Murkowski for her service and dedication to Alaska. We commend her, too, for her gracious concession at a time when others would have waited a few days.

As usual, she made the concession decision based not on what might have been more comfortable for her, but on what was best for Alaska. Once it was clear she would not win, getting on with the next step was clearly in the state's interest. For that, too, she deserves thanks.

As her colleague, Sen. Mark Begich, said Wednesday, Sen. Murkowski "has served the citizens of Alaska with great energy and considerable grace, always putting Alaska first. While we served together in the U.S. Senate for almost two years from different political parties, we agreed on Alaska issues nearly 99 percent of the time."

Being Ketchikan-born, Lisa Murkowski naturally had an advantage here in her hometown, and the ballots bore that out. She garnered more votes than did Miller here (1,332 District 1 voters chose Murkowski, while 949 chose Miller, as of the latest count on the Division of Elections website).

Before she served honorably in the United States Senate for eight years, she was a member of the Alaska Legislature.

We are confident we'll see her again. And if the major party candidates are smart, she's not the only one we'll see.

We expect we'll see more of Mr. Miller and his Democratic opponent, Sitka Mayor Scott McAdams, here in the First City between now and November.

A city the size of Ketchikan can make a difference in a statewide election; Ketchikan's votes alone in the Aug. 24 primary were more than enough to decide that race: 2,716 ballots were cast in District 1 for Democratic and Republican U.S. Senate candidates.

Now we need to learn more about Miller and McAdams both. After all, we'll be helping to decide which of them goes to Washington in January.

We'll be better equipped to vote by meeting them in person. That's to their benefit; as is their convincing voters here that they intend to represent the whole state, including southern Southeast Alaska, should they be accorded the privilege of membership in the exclusive club that is the U.S. Senate.

Congratulations to Joe Miller and Scott McAdams for their primary wins; now the race begins. We look forward to getting to know both better before Nov. 2.