Swimmer drowns in local lake

PALMER — A Wasilla man drowned while swimming in Matanuska Lake Saturday evening.

James Evangelestomp, 23, was reportedly out of the lake and receiving CPR when Alaska State Troopers were called to the scene, according to an AST press statement.

“(He) was swimming in the lake when he submerged under water for an unknown reason and did not resurface,” is how troopers describe what happened.

Troopers spokeswoman Megan Peters said in an email that she could not offer an explanation for why Evangelestomp went under.

“Someone told troopers they thought he may have been caught on something, but nothing was located in the water. Also, no marks were noticed on the victim,” Peters wrote.

Gary Klink, chief of the Mat-Su Borough Dive Rescue Team, said that he also didn’t know what caused Evangelestomp to go under.

“There were a handful of folks that were swimming and he got into trouble somehow. I don’t know the whole story of why. He looked young and fit,” Klink said.

He said that when his team got to the lake, Evangelestomp was out of the water and receiving CPR. A dive team boat shuttled responders to the scene.

Klink said that there’s a portion of the lake a lot of people think is an island, but which is more of a point, something you can walk to. The trail, though, would be quite a hike for someone carrying a patient and it would be impossible to continue CPR during the hike, so they used the dive team’s boat instead.

“We put him in the boat, took him back over and put him in the ambulance and away he went,” Klink said.

Barbara Hunt with the Alaska Job Corps Center in Palmer posted a tribute to Evangelestomp on Facebook. In an email, she said Evangelestomp was a former student there and a leader during his 18 months at Job Corps

“His smile embraced everyone,” Hunt said. “He did several great construction projects.”

Troopers say that Evangelestomp was taken to Mat-Su Regional Medical Center where he was pronounced deceased. They say his next-of-kin was with him on scene.

Evangelestomp’s drowning is at least the second of the summer and the third in Matanuska Lake in about a year.

On June 25, Phillip Kounduangta, 24, of Anchorage, drowned while witnesses said he appeared to be trying to swim to an island in Stephan Lake near the end of South Big Lake Road.

Last year, on July 6, a pair of brothers drowned in Matanuska Lake. Michael Francis, 70, of Pocatello, Idaho, and Randy Francis, a Palmer resident, were pulled from the lake after their canoe overturned.

Contact Andrew Wellner at 352-2270 or

andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com.