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The largest solar water heating system in Alaska is operating in the Denali area.

The Denali Education Center at Mile 231 Parks Highway will celebrate that project on Friday with an 11:30 a.m. ribbon-cutting ceremony at their campus, right behind the McKinley Village Lodge.

A huge solar panel array went up a little more than a week ago, right behind the cabins used regularly by Elderhostel visitors. So it was only fitting that a crowd of Elderhostelers toasted the new project with champagne the day it was erected.

This project, sponsored by Golden Valley Electric Association and the Alaska Energy Authority, is an effort to lower energy costs, offset fossil fuel energy consumption and demonstrate sustainable business opportunities for the state’s seasonal tourism trade.

State legislators are expected to attend the event.

GVEA selected the Denali Education Center as its test site for the system after receiving a grant from the Alaska Energy Authority to construct the state’s largest solar thermal system.

Community leaders from around the state are expected to visit the site and observe the technology in action, so they can determine whether a similar system might work in their own backyards — whether they are remote villages or towns on the road system.

Acting Executive Director Jodi Rodwell said the system is on and fully functional.

“Come on over and run some hot water,” she joked on the organization’s Web site.

Denali Education Center also is working with Solar Energy International to offer a special for-credit teacher training at the Denali Education Center from June 6-12, 2010. Teachers statewide are invited to participate.

SEI is a nonprofit organization that teaches individuals from all walks of life how to design, install and maintain renewable energy systems and how to design and build efficient, sustainable homes

For more information on this project, visit www.denali.org.

Opera at Denali

When New York Metropolitan Opera Tenor David Cangelosi visits Denali next week, my guess is he will bring opera to many people for the first time.

Opera Fairbanks is making this possible by partnering with the Denali Arts & Humanities Alliance, a community group dedicated to enhancing and sustaining arts and humanities locally.

Community partners Denali Princess Resort and Denali Park Resorts are helping sponsor the visit.

Cangelosi, who has performed with the Paris Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago, San Francisco and Washington operas is described as “spellbinding, stellar and impressive” in reviews.

He has agreed to do a free school performance for students of the Denali Borough School District and to provide free private lessons for some students.

He told me by e-mail that he plans to introduce opera by describing how the classical voice works and explaining the difference between opera and other forms of singing. He will demonstrate the difference.

He also said he will provide some hands-on interactive demonstrations with fun props and costume pieces as he writes and performs an ad-hoc opera “on the spot” with the help of students.

Students from all three schools will attend this special event, traveling to Healy from Cantwell and Anderson.

Cangelosi will present a community performance at the Denali Princess Main Lodge Building at 7:30 p.m. Sept. 4, along with his longtime collaborator Marge Adler. The performance is free to the public.

At Denali, it is easier to bring David Cangelosi to the grand piano than to bring the grand piano to him.

Gymnastics

Coach Katie Stainbrook plans to begin teaching gymnastics in October, hosting one-month sessions. Watch for details coming soon.

Denali Art Center

The vision is to have an art center where local artisans can display their wares, perhaps have a work space and teach classes.

But it won’t start out that way.

It will begin as a pottery studio where students can sit behind the potter’s wheel and create their own clay pots.

Watch for this new art studio opening in October, adjacent to the Healy RV Chevron. Jason Motyka plans to offer pottery classes on a regular basis and to offer the space to other artists as well. He envisions artists teaching classes in trade for studio time.

He intends to operate it as a nonprofit, charging a modest fee for supplies and utilities. But for now, he is seeking community help with supplies and manpower to make the building usable.

Contact Jason at the Healy RV Chevron or the Denali Park Salmon Bake for more information.

Sports fees

A toy duck race, a monthlong garage sale and other fundraisers helped raise about $6,000 this summer for the school sports fund at Tri-Valley School. The good news is fees for individual sports won’t skyrocket as high as feared.

Cross-country, track and soccer will cost $100 to participate. Basketball, volleyball and hockey will each cost $150, and middle school sports remain $50 per sport.

Pizza delivery

I can only hope that the pizza delivery man found a home for the pizza he called me about the other day as I was driving north on the Parks Highway just north of Nenana. He accidentally transposed the area code of the phone number from 970 to 907 and was aghast when I told him he had just called Alaska. He was delivering the pizza in Denver.