DON DENNIS AND ANN (MILLER) DENNIS FAMILY WEBSITE 

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Driving to Alaska 09

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http://www.touchingthegame.com/alaska/trailer.shtml
A short trailer of the movie about the Alaska Baseball League

“Don has been a baseball mentor to many of us, and for that I thank him. Sitting around, grabbing a bite, and talking baseball ranks right up there with any baseball memory that I have ever had. Don is just a special human being”
Elliot Strankman (03-04-05-06)

1975 Goldpanners Yearbook

The day to day operation of the Alaska Goldpanners is handled by Don Dennis, who has been with the club since the latter part of 1967 when he moved to Fairbanks from Colorado.   Dennis serves as general manager of the club and in that capacity is responsible for all pre-season preparations and off the field activities year round.  The 35-year old Dennis, who doubles as editor of the Fairbanks Daily News Miner, this year was honored as the first National Baseball Congress "Executive of the Year" at the organization's annual banquet in February in Wichita, Kan., home of the national tournament.  Dennis came to Fairbanks as business manager of the team in 1967 following the disastrous Fairbanks flood, which put the financial condition of the team in disarray.  The team has since moved into the black and now operates on a $141,000 budget, nearly three times that of the mid 1960's.  In addition to the Goldpanners Dennis is extremely active in Fairbanks sports circles.  He serves as Executive Director of the Boys Club of Fairbanks; promotes and does the color work on University of Alaska basketball broadcasts; previously served for three years as the sports information director at the University of Alaska; serves on the Board of Directors of the Fairbanks Quarterback Club; is a league officer in both the Babe Ruth and America Legion baseball programs; served as tournament director of the 1975 Multiple Sclerosis Alaska Basketball Tournament of Champions; directed operations of the Fairbanks Amateur Basketball League during the 1974-75 season; serves on the Board of Directors of the North Star Little Dribblers basketball association; helped organize the highly successful University of Alaska Blue & Gold Club and on and on.  For his efforts, Dennis was recognized as the Fairbanks "Sportsman of the year" in 1973 by the Fairbanks Quarterback Club.   Previous to joining the Goldpanners in 1967 Dennis had worked three years with the Grand Junction, Colo. Eagles as business manager and in other capacities, and in 1967 he founded the Southern Colorado Diablos of Pueblo, the forerunner of the Olympia Brewers team which appears on the Goldpanners' 1975 schedule.

AURA OF ALASKA INSPIRES CRAFTSMEN TO CREATE

By Margaret Gray for the News Miner

........................When Ann Dennis came to Fairbanks several years ago, there were no ceramic shops.

Now this creative work is done in 15 or more shops and homes. Alaskan Red Clay is found in the Goldstream Valley in Fairbanks, near Healy and around Anchorage. It is actually green when taken from the ground but turns an earthy red when fired.

Ann learned about Alaskan clay five years ago and now she uses it to make dinner pottery from pre-made and original molds. She says it is good for sculpting also.

The color of Alaskan clay items is created by swirling Alaskan red clay with white clay. Ann poured plaster in a bear paw indention on Birch Hill and now has another  authentic Alaskan piece from which to make a mold.

 

LIFE IN FAIRBANKS......... 

Friday Night March 15, 1974

Forget the Dear Husband Jazz. Tonight I am laying it on straight. For 5 days now I've been the noble little woman, keeping the wood box full, baby's pants changed, three kids in and out of school daily, not writing anything that might sound discouraging so you would be encouraged to devote all your thoughts to your studies at Columbia. But, tonight is MY TURN!!!

I rewrote my will today and have left instructions that when I die a  plaque will be made  to place on my sod bod. On it, etched in SOLID GOLD will be the immortal words: THIS KID DID EVERYTHING!

I thought I'd pretty well covered it before but today was ... well.......

Teena came home from school and informed me she had bad news and good news. The good news was that she ate ALL her lunch. GOOD KID! The bad news was that she'd forgotten her retainer on the lunch tray...................and...................

"Hello, School? My daughter forgot the most important part of her mouth in the cafeteria. It's pink and full of wires....... No? Nothing there that resembles that?"

OK.

The boys get home and we draw straws to see who stays home to babysit the Little General and who goes to school to help hunt for a lost retainer. About then she remembered to tell me that each kid dumps its lunch remains into the garbage before turning in their tray. Swell!

Scott babysat and we three headed for school. "Hello Custodian, Sir. I'd like to know where you keep your lunch garbage".

"In the dumpster outside, why?"

"Because I want to take the sacks home with me".

"Whatever grabs ya, lady, but they're in leaky plastic bags and pretty heavy".

She bats her eyes and tosses her  curls and says "Would you be so kind as to help me load it in my car?"

Out we go, followed by a short fat custodian who doesn't say much, obviously the peon of the two.... and a tall, leering one, in charge, and who thinks he is pretty cute. "Do you come around here often, Lady?"

"..........Just load the bags into my car, please".

Five leaky, smelly bags later, we thank them and drive off, leaving a trail of vegetable soup and sour milk.

Once home we quickly unload our treasure, leaving the car doors open so the limo will be drivable in a month or so.

The first bag we schlep down to the basement so we could dig for treasure without a carpet to worry about. What a disaster! Hundreds of soggy cheese sandwiches, two school spoons, 261 cartons of half drunk sour milk, and the remains of hundreds of bowls of foul vegetable soup! And no retainer!

..... back up the stairs and outside.

Sack #2 was so heavy we couldn't get it downstairs so we spread plastic on the living room carpet and squeezed our way through another few hundred sandwiches and drained off the juicy stuff in the bottom....No Retainer!

I now have food enough on the carpet to feed an Army! For a month!

Sack #3 and #4 were equally disgusting but nothing found. After three hours of this joy, we get to sack #5. I opened it and the retainer was right on top!!!!!!!!!! By then I am so garbage soaked I didn't know whether to hug the kid or kill her. I deserve the Mother of the Year Award because I didn't kill her.

We re-bagged all the garbage and drug it to the back yard where it'll tantalize the neighbor dogs for a week.

Back to the house and surveying the castle I am tempted to commit hara kari!   Decided to fill the humidifier and as I was crossing the room I slipped on a stray carrot from the  vegetable soup and dumped three gallons of water all over the new chair and living room carpeting!

For now I just walked away...after it mingles with the garbage drips for a few days we'll have the new green shag I've wanted!

Oh yes, I lost the checkbook.

All my love, Ann

Teena in musical, and  in spelling bee.

Four men, including former major-leaguer Mark Grace and Alaska baseball manager Don Dennis, will be inducted into the National Baseball Congress World Series Hall of Fame during this year’s tournament, July 31-Aug. 14 at Lawrence-Dumont Stadium.

Dennis has been the GM of the Fairbanks (Alaska) Goldpanners for all six of the team’s NBC titles over five decades. Fairbanks owns the most NBC championships.

Fairbanks’ successful return brightens NBC

Bob Lutz, Wichita Eagle

 

Fairbanks returned to the winner’s circle after a 22-year absence to win its sixth championship, more than any team in NBC history. A variety of factors led to the Panners’ decision not to play in Wichita from 1987-99.

But, they’re baaaack.

After a 24-hour tournament in 2000, when Fairbanks lost two games in the blink of an eye to be eliminated, the Goldpanners put together a great team this summer under Ed Cheff, the highly successful NAIA coach at Lewis-Clark (Idaho) State College.

Scott Robinson was just such a good hitter,” said Fairbanks general manager Don Dennis, who has been with the Panners throughout their glory years, starting with their first NBC World Series appearance in 1962. “Now Scott has become a really fine all-around player.”

The NBC trudged ahead without Fairbanks for all those years, but it wasn’t the same tournament. The Anchorage Glacier Pilots, Kenai, Mat-Su, North Pole and the Anchorage Bucs have always represented Alaska well in Wichita — the Pilots were attempting to win their sixth championship Sunday, as well.

But no team has ever had a more impressive run than Fairbanks. You can argue that the 1970s were the best years of the tournament, and it was then that the Panners won four of their titles and played in seven consecutive championship games from 1971-77.

“It feels good to be back here and to win,” Dennis said.

Of course, resources are the biggest reason the Alaska League has adopted such a policy. But it’s also a huge factor in the strength of the teams it sends to Wichita every summer. The two teams that play in the World Series are able to pick up quality players from the rosters of other Alaska League teams.

“A lot of our success this year is because we hired a savvy coach,” Dennis said. “He was able to get the most out of these players.”

Dennis, probably the most successful figure in NBC history, didn’t join his team for a jubilant post game celebration on the field. Instead, he remained stationed behind a camera above the bleachers behind third base, helping with the Fairbanks Web cast.

He’s an encyclopedia of Goldpanners knowledge, able to recall an individual player in a blink, to rattle off the performance of a team in a given year.

Fairbanks has now played in 23 World Series, and won 26 percent of them. The Panners also have six second-place finishes, so they have played in the championship game in 52 percent of the tournaments they have entered.

The Panners are the New York Yankees of the NBC World Series. Their roots dig deep into the tournament’s vast tradition. It’s good to have them in Wichita, winning championships. It only makes the NBC that much stronger.

by Irv Moss, Denver Post Sports Writer

It's a long way from Fowler, Colo., to Fairbanks, Alaska.

It also could be an equally long way from the newspaper business to the world of semipro baseball. But there is a connection.

The connection is Don Dennis, a 38 year old amateur baseball enthusiast who has gone from Fowler to Fairbanks and from the newspaper business to becoming the Bill Veeck of the sprawling semipro baseball community.

Dennis is the general manager of the Fairbanks Goldpanners, a team that has cut a record through semipro baseball that would do justice to the old New York Yankees domination of the professional ranks.

The Goldpanners currently are in Wichita, Kan., for the National Baseball Congress tournament and they have a shot at successfully defending their national championship.

If successful, Fairbanks will be national champions for the fifth time in seven years. The Goldpanners were runnersup the two years they didn't win during that stretch.

DENNIS SAYS the secret has been finding the right field manager and sticking with him. The right man has turned out to be Jim Dietz, who has been the Goldpanners field boss since 1971.

"We work well together," Dennis said. "Most sports organizations will find that they are better off to stick with the right man when they find him. If we have a problem, it is the player who goes, I don't care who he is."

That is quite a statement when you consider the Fairbanks roster has included names like Tom Seaver, Graig Nettles, Rick Monday, Dave Kingman and Andy Messersmith to name a few.

One of Dennis' main duties as general manager is to search the colleges for baseball talent good enough to meet the needs of the Goldpanners. Those needs are stringent.

While he readily admitted it is on a different scale, Dennis contended that his Goldpanners are to Fairanks what the Denver Nuggets and Denver Broncos are to Denver.

"It's the biggest show athletically in the state," Dennis said. "We are selling 1,700 season tickets for amateur baseball. If we were in professional baseball, we would have one of the strongest minor league operations in the country."

DENNIS WORKS at keeping Fairbanks high on the priority list of places where the top college baseball players want to spend their summers. His operation includes "spring training" in Hawaii, a couple of months of play in Alaska and then a barnstorming tour to the national tournament in Wichita. His barnstorming has included a goodwill tour to Japan as well as competing in a World Tournament in Holland.

Semipro baseball in Alaska has flourished since Dennis arrived on the scene.

Only the Goldpanners were in operation when Dennis became the team's general manager in 1967.

Dennis and other members of the Fairbanks management helped a team get started in Anchorage in 1969. He was even more instrumental in helping teams start in Kenai and Palmer.

Anchorage was the pretournament favorite this year in Wichita, and Kenai's Peninsula Oilers are one of the six finalists as the National Baseball Congress tournament nears completion.

Each of the four teams in Alaska carries a roster of 25 of the top college players available.

Dennis admits to being an astute baseball fan and his liking for the game finally won out over his journalism career in 1976. "I just decided the baseball business had outgrown the time when I could divide myself between two jobs," Dennis explains.

UP TO THEN, Dennis' route from Fowler to Fairbanks included newspaper stops in Pueblo and Grand Junction in Colorado and two different dailies in Fairbanks. He was managing editor of the Daily News Miner in Fairbanks when he switched to full time with the Goldpanners.

It probably is never safe, however, to say that Dennis devotes full time to anything. At one time, he was the general manager for the Goldpanners, a sports editor of a newspaper and the sports information director for the University of Alaska.

Dennis still fills the duties of sports information director at the university, despite his growing baseball interests.

His association with Colorado actually started in Colorado Springs, where he spent his early childhood. After living for a time in New York state, Dennis and his family returned to Colorado in 1946 and lived in Fowler.

Dennis attended junior college in Pueblo and started to work for the Pueblo Chieftain the day he graduated.

He later worked for the Grand Junction Sentinel, and it was while he was on Colorado's Western Slope that he became associated with semipro baseball. It was through the Grand Junction Eagles that he met Red Boucher.

At the time, Boucher was ramrodding the Goldpanners, but he later went into politics and offered Dennis the job of general manager.

I TURNED it down when he first offered me the job in 1964," Dennis recalled. He returned to Pueblo and finished school, but "fled" to Alaska in 1967.

Before leaving Colorado, Dennis organized the Southern Colorado Diablos, a team out of Pueblo that was the forerunner of the Pueblo Olympia Brewers. The Brewers also competed in Wichita this year, but were eliminated.

Semipro baseball already had a good start in Colorado with the Boulder Collegians, and Dennis almost got a strong league under way in the state before Alaska beckoned.

Now it is all baseball management for the former sports writer. "I grew up with baseballl," Dennis pointed out. But he also liked his newspaper career to a point.

"There never was a day I didn't want to go to work when I was in the newspaper business," Dennis said. "But I also haven't had the urge to go back."

Don Dennis knows his Baseball

Don Dennis
Craig Smith
Fairbanks Daily News Miner 9/28/76

It has been nine years since Don Dennis arrived in Fairbanks on a 48 below zero November day.

"Red" Boucher, then general manager of the Goldpanners, met him at the airport and knowing Dennis' passion for Mexican food, took him to dinner at The Sombrero. Then they went to a University of Alaska basketball game where, despite the weather, the stands were packed.

"That really made an impression on me," recalls Dennis.

Since then, Dennis has done his share of packing stands - the grandstands at Growden Field. And as general manager of the Panners and the No. 1 figure in the local sports scene, he has made quite an impression on Fairbanks - four national championship teams and a big role in the creation of the Alaska League, for example.

Dennis has two sides - the businessman and the sports nut. As the businessman and Goldpanner GM he is generally practical and careful. As the sports nut, he is a perpetual 10 year old kid.

"Sometimes I think he never grew up," said one friend. "He always reminds me of a little boy at his first major league game with his glove."

Dennis, 37, took a giant step to capitalize on his familiarity and reputation in Fairbanks this past winter when he left his post as editor of this newspaper to go into various business endeavors in addition to his Goldpanner duties.

Dennis, who has served as a management consultant to some businesses, is thinking of investing in a radio station for Palmer (located at Big Lake), is looking into establishing a fast-food chain outlet here (he won't say what chain) and is involved in what he will only term "pipeline related ventures."

Asked how long he plans to stay in Fairbanks, he replied, "indefinitely."

DENNIS GREW UP in Fowler, CO where his father was a chemist at the Pueblo Army Depot. Although he was about the biggest boy in his high school and played basketball and football (there was no baseball) he admits, "I never worked hard enough to excel."

"I was always more interested in announcing games, keeping statistics. learning the X's and O's....I was not what you call a dedicated athlete. Something was lacking, and I was a busy guy delivering newspapers after school and the last two years of high school serving as projectionist at the Valley Theater. All of that took me away from participating in sports."

He had a scholarship offer from Denver University but instead enrolled at Pueblo Junior College. But on the first day of practice he injured his ankle. The coach, Harry Simmons ("the winingest coach in the nation") then asked him, "I need some help with the press guide. You want to do it?"

Dennis obliged. Simmons then helped Dennis get his first newspaper job as a sportswriter for the Pueblo Chieftain. Dennis credits Simmons with many other assists in charting the direction of his life.

He later went to work for the Grand Junction, Colorado Daily Sentinel and became involved with that city's summer baseball team. He brought the team to Fairbanks for a series in 1964 and back again in 1965.

DENNIS WOUND UP with a college degree from Pueblo as the school evolved into a four-year college, Southern Colorado. He also organized the forerunner of the Pueblo Olympia Brewers summer baseball team.

Dennis was recruited for the Goldapnner general manager job by Boucher. He arrived in 1967 but Boucher didn't completely leave the Panners until 1969.

"Red was the Goldpanners and it was very hard for him to get out just like it would be for me," Dennis said.

Boucher lined up a job as sports editor of Jessen's Daily for Dennis but the job evaporated a year later when the newspaper drowned in red ink. The Daily News-Miner was on the phone within hours on the day the competition folded and offered Dennis a job. He accepted a few weeks later and 18 months later was editor of this newspaper.

Asked what part of his job as GM is the toughest, Dennis replied "None of it is tough." Then he added that fund raising in the fall for winter expenses can be a chore. As for recruiting, he said "It takes a knack but it isn't hard. If you know what you're doing it's enjoyable."

DENNIS HAS TOLD at least one interviewer that the thing he enjoys most about the Goldpanners is that many players develop into major leaguers. He also thinks the Goldpanners are a cohesive element in the community and develop community pride.

Dennis and his wife, Ann, have four children. He met her at a birthday party in Colorado and fortunately she shares an interest in sports. Their first dates were to Denver-Chicago Truckers games in the National Industrial Basketball League.
The couple has four children, Scott 14, Steve 12, Teena 11 and Todd 4. The entire family often winds up doing Goldpanner chores from ticket booth duty to repairing electrical outlets.

Dennis says Steve asked his mother this year when he would be able to take over his father's duties.

Part of Dennis' job is to arrange promotions to increase attendance at Panner's games. Over the years there have been some hilarious foul ups.

On July 4, 1968, Boucher, who was mayor, conspired to have the city's Fourth of July celebration held at the ballpark. The guest speaker was an admiral. The intention was that the admiral would just say a few words then the ball game would start.

INSTEAD, the admiral showed up with a 20-page speech that was as windy as the day itself.

"He stood out at home plate trying to turn pages in the wind," Dennis recalls. "The crowd started booing and hollering, "Play Ball!" Finally the wind blew some of the pages out of his hand and the speech ended."

On another occasion, skydivers were supposed to land inside the ballpark just before a game. They didn't show up and so the game started. In the fourth inning Goldpanner Pete Broberg (now of the Milwaukee Brewers) had a no-hitter going when all of a sudden parachutists dropped out of the sky.

"Guys started running for cover," Dennis said with a grin. "I knew what was happening but no one else did."

The most recent funny fiasco occurred on June 6, 1976 when the Goldpanner organization sponsored a night of professional wrestling at Growden Field as a fund-raising event. The problems began when the wrestlers showed up at the wrong hotel and terrorized a desk clerk. Then they commandeered cabs and found the right hotel. Dennis had checked with the National Weather Service and determined that the odds of good weather on June 6 were excellent. But the day turned out to be wet, cold and miserable.

At Growden Field, with a crowd of only about 100 in the stands, the wrestlers refused to get off their bus. It took what their promoter called "the speech of my life" to get them onto the field.

One of the wrestlers' demands was that a doctor be at ringside. Dennis took care of that. He contacted Dr. Jim Beckley and "Beck" took his place at ringside.

To this day none of the wrestlers probably knows that Dr. Beckley is a veterinarian.

Fairbanks has 40-80 earthquakes a week!

              DON DENNIS AND ANN (MILLER) DENNIS FAMILY WEBSITE 

  NEW on the site  

        Calendars 56-61  

Driving to Alaska 09

2009 Goldpanner Barnstorming Trip

click for: Sturgis  Menu  (100 + pages of Sturgis material)

 click for:  Fowler Menu  (100 + pages of Fowler material)

   POW  WWII             "It All Began"                   "....And an Electric Chair"

Copyright law precludes use of others work without explicit permission.  Web pages, by law,  are protected as soon as created.   www.dondennisfamily.com reserves the right to pursue unauthorized users of any image, clip or text from this website. If you violate our intellectual property you may be liable to pay compensation,  and where appropriate, the costs of collection and/or statutory damages.  Material is watermarked with transparent overlay or marked, and our presentation of this material is copyrighted.  No part of this website or the related files may be reproduced or transmitted in any form, by any means (electronic, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without  prior written permission. (THIS MEANS:  DON'T EVEN THINK ABOUT USING ANY OF OUR SCANS!)

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