ANCHORAGE \u2014 Months after a school secretary in the western Alaska village of Hooper Bay lost her son to an accidental death, she says she finally has some closure thanks to a group of students who helped dig his grave.<\/p>\n
Maria Oaks held a funeral service in Hooper Bay after her 39-year-old son, Richard, died in Anchorage in January. But his body rested in a casket above ground until recently, while the permafrost began to thaw, KTUU-TV reported (http:\/\/bit.ly\/1Rcbw1X).<\/p>\n
\u201cAt the time the ground was pretty frozen for us to bury him … but we placed him over at the cemetery,\u201d Oaks said.<\/p>\n
As Hooper Bay School students neared the end of the school year in late May, it marked the start of the school\u2019s annual Cultural Week, an effort by students to help elders in the community.<\/p>\n
Hooper Bay School lead faculty member Daniel Cernak said some activities included sewing traditional crafts or netting whitefish to donate to neighbors. But a group of about a dozen students chose to help Oaks bury her son.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe said \u2018Yeah we\u2019d love to do that\u2019 so I walked around and got a bunch of the high school boys and loaded them up in the school truck,\u201d Cernak said.<\/p>\n
The students went to the grave site and worked for hours shoveling as far into the ground as they could. When they reached a layer of permafrost, a community water and sewer company sent a backhoe to do the rest. Some students had even stayed past the end of the school day to complete the job.<\/p>\n
Cernak said it was a powerful moment watching the students put forth that kind of effort as well as a reflection of the school\u2019s role in the broader community.<\/p>\n
Oaks said it\u2019s a relief knowing her son has finally been laid to rest.<\/p>\n
\u201cFrom the time we brought him over to the cemetery, I had never rested well, never slept well,\u201d Oaks said. \u201cAfter they buried him, I have been sleeping better.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
ANCHORAGE \u2014 Months after a school secretary in the western Alaska village of Hooper Bay lost her son to an accidental death, she says she finally has some closure thanks to a group of students who helped dig his grave. Maria Oaks held a funeral service in Hooper Bay after her 39-year-old son, Richard, died […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":4,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[230],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-28007","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-state-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28007","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/107"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28007"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28007\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28007"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28007"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28007"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=28007"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}