John Wight wasn't always a smiling airline captain, the popular professor of aviation at the University of Alaska Anchorage that students call "awesome," "hilarious" and "the best professor I ever had." (He gets a 4.9 rating from students at the "Rate My Professor" site, an A+.)
In the 1970s and '80s, Wight endured seven nightmarish years of imprisonment in Madagascar. His harrowing story is recounted in a new book, "The Stolen Years," written by his wife, Jean Wight.
Wight was flying a Cessna 402 twin-engine plane from South Africa to Mauritius with two South African businessmen on board when a storm forced them to double back and make an emergency landing on Madagascar. It was 1977 and the island nation was paranoid with fears that it would be invaded by mercenaries from apartheid South Africa. Wight and his passengers were arrested and imprisoned on charges of trying to overthrow the government.
The prisoners battled a convoluted and corrupt justice system, long spells of tedium and uncertainty in filthy, crowded jails and episodes of beatings, starvation and solitary confinement. They tried to escape. Wight's father, a World War II flying ace, attempted daredevil airborne rescue missions. The government of Madagascar presented overtures to swap Wight for Nelson Mandela, who was incarcerated in South Africa, adding the complications of international politics into the prisoners' predicament.
After his eventual release, Wight flew passenger jets for South African Airways, then for Korean Airlines, a job that brought him and his family to Anchorage. He also worked for Evergreen Aviation before taking his present post with UAA.
Remarkably, he returned to Madagascar to train pilots -- and share drinks with some of his previous captors.
The Wights will sign copies of "The Stolen Years" from 1 to 5 p.m. on Sunday, Nov. 16, at the Costco on DeBarr and Bragaw. Additional book signings will take place as follows:
- 1-5 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 22 at Costco on Dimond
- 4-6 p.m. Friday, Dec. 5, at the UAA Bookstore
- 3 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 13 at Fireside Books in Palmer
Arts awards announced
The Alaska State Council on the Arts has announced grants to individuals and groups totaling $57,930.
Career Opportunity Grants to artists were awarded to Kathryn Russo and Kathleen Light of Ketchikan and Joan Kane, James Riordan and Hanna Craig of Anchorage.
Community Arts Development Grants were awarded to the Anchorage Park Foundation, Girdwood Art Institute, Momentum Dance Collective of Anchorage, Opera Fairbanks, Pier One Theatre in Homer, Young Emerging Artists Inc. of Anchorage, the Valdez Museum and Historical Archive and the Sitka School District.
Grants from the New Visions program went to the Sitka School District, Copper River School District, Kodiak Island Borough School District, Bering Strait School District and North Slope Borough School District.
Build like an Alaskan
In conjunction with the Anchorage Museum's upcoming "Cabin Fever" exhibit, the Alaska Design Forum is sponsoring its Cabin Fever Design Challenge to encourage Alaskans "to develop contemporary 'cabin' designs which highlight the uniqueness of living in the frozen North." Select designs will be featured in a show at the International Gallery of Contemporary Art around Rondy time. Participants are encouraged to think about designs that take advantage of Alaska's landscape and conditions, or overcome the obstacles of them and use local materials, sustainable energy and new technology. Cash prizes will be awarded, but you'll need to register by Dec. 8. Get the details at alaskadesignforum.org.
Anchorage experts speak in Juneau
As part of a series of free lectures, the Sealaska Heritage Institute is hosting two authorities on the topic of the harbor seals of Yakutat Bay. Judy Ramos with the University of Alaska Anchorage and Aron Crowell with the Smithsonian Institution Arctic Studies Center at the Anchorage Museum will talk about collaborative efforts to research the history of Yakutat's people (Ramos' family hails from there) and the ecosystem of the area. The talk tales place at noon on Tuesday, Nov. 18, in the fourth floor boardroom at Sealaska Plaza in Juneau. Attendees are invited to bring their own lunches.
Detroit Museum saved
Among items from the national press that caught our attention this week, the Detroit Institute of the Arts, one of America's most important museums, will apparently be spared the worst possibilities raised by the insolvent city. With Detroit in bankruptcy, the sale of paintings and sculptures from the museum's collection was raised as a way to pay off debt. Pieter Bruegel the Elder's "The Wedding Dance," for example, was expected to bring about $200 million if sold at auction.
The plan approved on Nov. 7 by federal Judge Steven W. Rhodes includes more than $800 million from the state of Michigan and private donors to be applied to the pensions of public employees as long as the museum is protected. It also shifts ownership of the institute from the city to a private charitable trust, the organizational model used by most major museums in the country.
In the maneuvers leading up to the ruling, lawyers assiduously dug through paperwork that concerned the donations of artwork going back almost 100 years. In the words of the New York Times, they were "looking for provisions that would, at the very least, tie up in court for years attempts to sell the works." Many old works from foreign countries come with strings attached.
The museum now faces the challenge of trying to beef up its endowment from contributors who were just asked to dig deep to avoid selling art that belongs to the public to millionaires in order to cover the retirement checks of city workers.
Whats in a name? $15 million
From New York comes word that Avery Fisher Hall, the home of the New York Philharmonic, will be renamed -- probably as directed by the highest bidder -- after major renovations amounting to about half a billion dollars are completed.
The symphonic hall at Lincoln Center, adjacent to the New York State Theater and the Metropolitan Opera, had acoustic problems from the minute it opened in 1962. Avery Fisher, owner of a company that made some of the finest electronic sound equipment of the last century, kicked in $10 million to fix some of the major problems in 1973. When the possibility of further renovation and a new name was raised 12 years ago, the Fisher family threatened to sue.
This time they're on board with the change, perhaps with the encouragement of a $15 million payout. That sounds like a lot of money to a newspaper reporter, but it frees up Lincoln Center to go after someone willing to dole out many more millions for the right to put their name permanently, or for a set number of years, on the wall. The New York Times reports that Wall Street financier Steven Schwarzman got to be the title character at the main New York Public Library for a donation of $100 million in 2008. Oil man David Koch picked up the New York State Theater in the same year for the same level of philanthropy.
It's not reported what the Lincoln family paid to name the whole complex.