In the news about the plane crash that killed Sen. Ted Stevens last August, the headlines read, "Stevens and four others killed." Corey Tindall was one of the four - an asterisk to a historic tragedy.

Corey Tindall

Corey's mother, GCI executive Dana Tindall, was also killed in the crash, as were Bill Phillips, a former Stevens aide, and the pilot, Terry Smith.

Corey was 16 years old, a gifted South High sophomore with chestnut hair and big dark eyes. Her kingdom was not the nation or the state or a corporation; it was her family and her friends, most of them on the South High debate team. For them, her death left a hole in the world.

"8/9/10," said her father, John Tindall, "that was my 9/11."

Shirley Mae Springer Staten works with children of single parents and those being raised by grandparents in the Home Base program, which helps youths with homework, teaches music and golf. (BOB HALLINEN / Anchorage Daily News)

Shirley Mae Springer Staten was halfway through the Whittier Tunnel, at the wheel of a 16-passenger van full of children, when she started to sweat.

What do you wish you knew when you graduated from high school? We asked readers that question this week. Their advice: Take it slow, do what you love, be more careful than you think you need to. Here's a list of their best suggestions.

1. Credit cards have no place in your wallet.

2. Don't get a dog.

3. Partying gets old. Good friends don't.

4. Go to class, even if you don't want to.

5. If you're really not ready for school, take time off, but do something that will broaden your horizons. Travel. Try Americorps. Move to another city.

I'm compiling a list of advice for high school grads. What do you wish you knew when you graduated from high school?

Here's the list so far, compiled from Facebook and Twitter:

1. Credit cards have no place in your wallet.

2. Don’t get a dog.

3. Partying gets old. Good friends don’t.

4. Go to school, even if you don’t want to.

5. If you’re really not ready for school, take time off, but do something that will broaden your horizons. Travel. Try Americorps. Move to another city.

6. No one will consider you an adult until you’re 30.

Some of you might have read my column about Charlie, the beagle mix who was left on a porch in Fairview with a note tucked in his collar earlier this month.

I've had a number of calls and emails asking what happened to him. It turns out he has found a home, his original home, four or five blocks from where the Ingrims live.

After I wrote about Charlie, offers poured in from readers who wanted to help him or adopt him, Ingrim said. People offered to buy him dog food and fly him to Juneau or Washington.

At South High, when school officials discovered a young man had emailed other students graphic, threatening song lyrics about a school shooting, Anchorage School District and the Anchorage Police Department responded swiftly. The student was suspended, recommended for expulsion, criminally charged, and his home was searched by police, who determined he didn't have plans or the weapons to make good on his threats. Parents were notified of the incident shortly after, in a very general way, by robo-call.

Flowers and signs remain on Thursday, April 21, 2011, but a ghost bike memorial had been removed from the intersection of Tudor Road and C Street. It had been placed in memory of cyclist Wil Curry, who died in a collision with a vehicle there.
(MARC LESTER / Anchorage Daily News)

The dress, sewn for a 6-year-old out of red gingham, was purchased at Junior Towne in 1969 or so. It had a Peter Pan collar, puff sleeves, a bow in the back and several layers of ruffled skirting. Hidden in the ruffles, tied with a tiny bow, was one silver bell.

Laurie Dworian feeds her chickens in her backyard enclosure. ERIK HILL / Anchorage Daily NewsRight now Anchorage's urban hens lead shadowy lives in illegal backyard coops, but soon they may be able to come clucking into the light.

Palin, pregnant, 2008: Here is Sarah Palin, obviously pregnant, in March 2008. A photo of her before the pregnancy is at the bottom of this post. (Copyright: Brian Wallace. Not to be distributed or reproduced in print, online or on television without permission)

CHARLIE: Gabby Ingrim, 13, and her sister Allie Ingrim, 14, watch Charlie from the front porch of their Fairview home as he examines a newcomer April 12, 2011. (BILL ROTH / Anchorge Daily News)

(Find out what happened to Charlie here.)

Stacie and Guy Ingrim were in bed when they heard the barking on the front porch. It was after midnight Friday. They went downstairs and peered out their front door. Under the porch light, they saw a dog. It looked like a beagle, smallish and white with honey-colored spots. It was tied to the railing. It gave a woeful bark.

ENTREPRENEURS: Triplets, from left, Amy, Michelle and Cika Sparck, who grew up in Bethel, have launched a cosmetics company Arxotica that uses wild harvested tundra botanicals in their break-out product, an anti-aging skin serum, called Quyung-lii. (BILL ROTH / Anchorage Daily News)

Who knew those blue-black clusters of crowberries mingled into blueberry patches across the Chugach range could be the key ingredient in an expensive, antioxidant-packed, wrinkle-fighting serum?

ASSEMBLY LINE: Workers package servings of frozen popcorn chicken and corn at the Anchorage School District Student Nutrition Center in South Anchorage in early March for March 14 elementary school lunches. (ERIK HILL / Anchorage Daily News)

Second of two parts

The old-school lunch lady with her steaming fresh-baked trays has gone extinct. School lunch arrives at Anchorage schools wrapped in plastic. In school kitchens across the city, there isn't very much to mix, bake or boil. This is the era of reheating.

(Want to know the nutrition info for the lunches above? Click here.)

If you are my age, you might remember the "Fluffernutter." This is a sandwich made of peanut butter and Marshmallow Fluff that was actually served to us in elementary school in Anchorage. In high school we were served cheese fries, bean burritos and warm breakfast danishes. We're talking school lunch from another time, offered long before the enormous chorus of complaining began about school nutrition. Things now, you'd assume, are much healthier.

NUANCE OF SPEECH: Daniel Gatkuoth is one of the founders and instructors of a school for a Sudanese tribal dialect. Members of the Sudanese community in Anchorage, many of whom came to the United States as refugees from civil war, teach a dialect of Nuer to children at First American Baptist Church. (MARC LESTER / Anchorage Daily News)

On weekday evenings children's voices sing syllables in the halls at First American Baptist Church. Wah. Yah. Bah. Pah. Mah.

Legislators in Juneau are looking at making it illegal to drive and talk on your cell phone without a hands-free device. The idea, in a bill sponsored by Juneau Republican Rep. Cathy Muñoz, follows common sense. Drivers need to keep their hands on the steering wheel. (Ever tried to change lanes, use your turn signal and hold a phone to your ear at the same time?)

The intention is to make the roads safer. There's only one problem. This bill won't get us there.

Photos by Bill Roth, ADN

Audio slide show: Mattie Deaton

Rep. Sharon Cissna, D-Anchorage, disembarking from the ferry Matanuska in Juneau Thursday, Feb. 24, 2011. (Chris Miller / The Associated Press)

State Rep. Sharon Cissna's now-famous run-in with the TSA last weekend was not where her problems with the full-body scanner began.

PUMPING IRON: Rod Sisson lifts 160 pounds while performing incline dumbbell presses in the weight room Feb. 14 at Pete's City Gym on the Delaney Park Strip. Sisson was spotted by fellow board member Jerry McDonnell. The two work with several other members to keep the nonprofit gym running. (ERIK HILL / Anchorage Daily News)

Audio slide show: The story of Pete's City Gym

Over on 10th Avenue, just south of the Delaney Park Strip ice rinks, is a modest building called Pete's City Gym. Inside, on certain mornings, you can find Chris Knox, a bald-headed bodybuilder who just turned 60 years old. He has some neurological problems now, but in his life he has many times hoisted twice his weight over his head.

Sydni Rocarek talks about how her life changed after she got pregnant as a teenager. Her video was part of a PSA project for high school students to help prevent teenage pregnancy.

I was sick and spent a couple of days at home recently. I was flipping through cable channels and I stopped on MTV. It was playing back-to-back episodes of "Teen Mom 2." In my weakened state, I couldn't turn away.