With summer on the horizon, Peninsula Clarion’s paginator Timothy Millings is already antsy for winter.
“I spend most of my summers waiting for winter to come,” Millings said. “Summer is usually filled with long dog walks and whatever weekend trip my wife and I can go on.”
Millings moved to Alaska in 2011 with his wife, who accepted a role with the school district to Ketchikan.
“I moved with her and was able to find work at The Local Paper in Ketchikan, which was my first job in newspapers,” Millings said. “Ketchikan is one of the most beautiful places I have been in my entire life, and I met a lot of amazing people there. We were there for about four years and then made our way up here.”
Millings started with the Peninsula Clarion in 2016. As paginator, he lays out many of the pages of the Clarion and the Homer News.
“I also do layout work on many of our special publications,” Millings said. “Pagination is important because it determines if what’s on the page makes any sense to the reader or if they are even interested in what they’re seeing.”
Although his love of winter implies a youth spent in cold weather, Millings is originally from South Carolina.
“I lived there until I was in my very early 30s,” Millings said. “I moved to Ketchikan in the summer of 2011. I loved driving through parts of America that I had never seen before but my favorite part was riding the ferry. I had driven across the country a couple of times before, but had never been that far north. My wife and I sailed fromPrince Rupert to Ketchikan on the Taku and that was my first taste of Alaska.”
Millings enjoys winter so much because of his love for skiing. This past winter, he expanded his skiing knowledge repertoire from cross country into downhill skiing.
“I think the coolest thing I did this year was learning how to do downhill skiing,” Millings said. “My wife took a couple of classes and passed what she learned on to me. Within an hour, I was much more comfortable going down the hills at Alyeska.”
Millings also raced the Tour of Tsalteshi, taking it as an opportunity to enjoy nature and some good music.
“It is a high point of the year for me,” he said. “I originally signed up so that I could ski on the day they were having the race since all of the trails were blocked off. I’m not a fast skiier, but I have a blast just listening to music and watching the more serious skiiers pass me by. “Kenji’s Mood” by Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers is my favorite song to ski to.”
When not skiing, Millings enjoys Tai Chi and taking his dog for a walk or a skijor.
“I have an amazing wife and a husky named Rosalyn (who is also amazing),” he said. “You have to walk huskies every day, so she motivates us to get out of the house a good bit. We try to take her on long walks on the weekend during the summer, and ski joring during the winter.”
