For most high-schoolers, the first thing they hear at school every day is the Pledge of Allegiance and announcements. But students at Anchorage’s Bartlett High School get something more:
“And good morning Bartlett Bears. Welcome to Wednesday, May 17 — graduation day. I’m meteorologist Jack Pellerin.”
14-year-old Pellerin is one of the first voices the students at Bartlett hear in the morning. A five-foot-one freshmen, each day at 7:30, Pellerin serves as the school’s resident weather reporter, his voice traveling through the halls, letting all the students know what they should be expecting in the skies over Anchorage.
“It’s nice to be able to talk about… even warn people about storms… you know, ‘Big storm coming,'” Pellerin said.
Pellerin took to meteorology early in life and says he’s been doing weather reports since he was in elementary school, taking a year-long hiatus in the sixth grade.
“Weather, wind specifically, I really like and its been before I started reporting that I liked this,” Pellerin said. “So it’s been a while.”
After hearing about Pellerin’s knack for meteorology a Bartlett staff member recommended that he do a morning weather show every day at the highs school.
Pellerin said he thinks having a daily weather report breaks up the monotony of typical morning announcements.
“It feels like this is such a rare thing,” Pellerin said. “I mean it’s really kind of unique to have a weather reporter. Usually, the most common thing is to have a morning announcement saying like, ‘Ok. Cross country running today…’ or whatever.”
Pellerin is the only weather reporter at the school and he says when he’s not around, things aren’t the same in the mornings.
“One time I wasn’t here, Madison Xiong just said, ‘Oh. Weather report… just look out your window,'” Pellerin laughed. “Cause I mean, there really isn’t weather when the weatherman’s not here.”
Pellerin is pretty early in his high school career, but he still foresees continuing his morning gig until he graduates, improving along the way.
“The future I’m thinking is that I’m going to continue this 7:30 broadcast and continue to do my thing,” Pellerin said. “And my routine might be a little different where I write at home — or write more at home and do less here — but basically I’m just going to continue, I hope.”
Pellerin has dreams of one day working live with green screen maps as a professional meteorologist. For now, students at Bartlett will get to hear about the weather changes followed by Pellerin’s signature signoff:
“And remember. The sun always shines at Bartlett High. Go Bears!”
Wesley Early covers Anchorage life and city politics for Alaska Public Media. Reach him at wearly@alaskapublic.org and follow him on X at @wesley_early. Read more about Wesley here.
