Why a Wrangell boarding school plan stirs bad memories — and opportunity

An undated photo of the Wrangell Institute school from a collection spanning 1898 to approximately 1946. (Photo courtesy Alaska State Library Historical Collections)
For one family, a proposal to build a 400-bed boarding school on the site of the former Wrangell Institute boarding school, which had a history of abusing students, is stirring up bad memories.
As an Alaska Native child living in Fairbanks in the ‘50s, Jim LaBelle wasn’t the most likely candidate to be sent to