Anchorage man still missing in Japan

The entire Takata High School swim team and a middle school English teacher, 26-year-old Alaskan Monty Dickson, remain missing from a town overlooking Hirota Bay in Japan, according to an article in The New York Times. The team "walked a half-mile to practice at the city's nearly new natatorium … That was the last anyone saw of them," The Times reports. Dickson, from Anchorage, taught elementary and junior-high students at a school in Rikuzentakata, Japan, a town where more than one in 10 was either killed or disappeared when the Sendai earthquake and subsequent tsunami devastated the island nation and third-largest economy in the world. According to KTUU-Channel 2 News, Dickson taught in the Japan Education and Teaching Program. His Anchorage relations live off the Park Strip downtown but have gotten "conflicting reports about what happened to Monty." One report, according to KTUU, indicated Dickson had communicated with his girlfriend after the tsunami destroyed the town; another report put him "at one of the schools in the area." The Anchorage NBC affiliate reports that Dickson was "very proud he could swim 70 laps in the (University of Alaska Anchorage) pool … and he looks out for other people." His family said they thought Dickson may be more concerned with helping rescue and recovery than with getting in touch back home. Anyone with information on Dickson's whereabouts was urged to contact Alaska Dispatch.