Sister City visitors are in town this week

PALMER — Six Japanese students and their chaperones are in town this week as just the latest iteration of a 30-year relationship between the city of Palmer and the city of Saroma, Hokaido, Japan.

The students were officially welcomed to Palmer this morning at Colony Middle School.

One of their two chaperones actually is someone with deep Palmer roots.

Sean Holland graduated from high school here and is living in Japan now as an English teacher. Holland will give a free slideshow presentation on the city of Saroma from 4 to 6 p.m., Saturday at the Presbyterian Church in Palmer.

Linda Combs, who is serving as a liason between the city of Palmer and the committee that manages the sister city and sister school program, said Saroma has been Palmer’s sister city for 30 years and Saroma schools have had a similar relationship with Palmer schools for 20 years.

She said it’s a little piece of city history that a lot of residents are not aware of. When most people think of Palmer history, the Colony project comes to mind.

“You cannot compare anything to 75 years of Colonists,” Combs said. “But 30 years is nothing to sneeze at either. That’s a pretty long-term friendship relationship.”

Combs said Palmer has built up a number of gifts from Saroma that the museum is planning to display in the spring.

She said thinks it would also be a good idea to make an effort to pull together people who may have participated in the regular exchanges between the cities. It’s surprising when one thinks about how many people in Palmer have visited Saroma or hosted visiting Japanese students or families, Combs said.

“It just spreads and spreads, but we’d like to pull them all together and get more community awareness about this,” Combs said.

Having been to Saroma herself, Combs said the relationship makes sense in a number of ways.

“You would be shocked at how much the area around Saroma looks like the area around Palmer,” she said.

Saroma is in the northern part of the country. It snows in the winter.

“They have (sled dog) racing there,” Combs said.

Contact Andrew Wellner at andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com or 352-2270.