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Don had gone to Alaska to
cover baseball games with the Grand
Junction Eagles baseball team, and
Red Boucher had tried to recruit him
to come manage the Goldpanner Baseball team. He called repeatedly.
With just one class left towards Don's degree, a child that needed
special medical care, and not really knowing what lay at the other
end, they decided to be very grown up about the decision.
A list was made, PROS CONS.
For Pros there was only one entry. ADVENTURE!
On the Con side there were 3-4 reasons not to go. They went. Don was 28 and Ann was 26 years old. A life
of genuine adventure awaited!
In 1967
flying to Fairbanks involved a 17 hour airplane
ride! You stopped at every little Montana and Washington
town, then once into Alaska the planes stopped at several small
villages, and finally!.. Fairbanks. Now you can fly from San Diego
to Fairbanks in 7 hours with good connections.
A three bedroom apartment rented for $250 a month,
quite a jump from the $99 a month payment for the house in Pueblo! Everything had to be
flown in, in those days, and groceries were terribly expensive.
Everything was! Ann started pottery work in earnest, giving
lessons, making a shop (The Clay Cache) out of one of the bedrooms so glazes and supplies
were available for the students. That allowed her to
work at home and be with the three little children.
She sewed hundreds of Barbie doll parkas trimmed in fur to raise money
to ship up a new kiln.
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Don worked several jobs and when
Jessen's Daily, the newspaper that had
moved them to Fairbanks, closed, he had a call within hours
to work for the large daily, the Fairbanks News Miner.
He started as wire editor and became Editor of
the paper at 31 years old. |
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Magazine from Holland
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Don was with the News Miner 10 years.
He was not only Editor-in-Chief, but did the sports pages and a daily
editorial and after 10 years was getting burned out.
He decided to resign and freelance for awhile with a new
family partnership, A&D Dennis Consulting. A&D did many
things, including contracts with the University of Alaska to produce
media guides. The new venture also bought air time and sold,
produced and delivered broadcasts of University sporting events with Don
on air, teamed with local Fairbanks sports personality Chuck Clutts.
A&D's biggest undertaking was importing
goods, primarily from Taiwan. It developed its own brand of
baseball and softballs, which were distributed nationwide for several
years under the label Alaska-1 or AK-1. Also, Don worked in Palmer, AK, starting a new
baseball team and building a
baseball field. Don ran the Merdes for Governor campaign in 1978.
Don spent from Sept 78
to Nov 79 in Anchorage (weekdays) as President of Pacific Rim
Publishing. He served two terms as President of the
National Association of Summer Baseball Leagues.
Finally after
several months of discussion, Don joined Arctic Slope Regional Corporation (ASRC)
the Eskimo Corporation from Barrow, AK. He managed their businesses,
principally in Fairbanks, Palmer and the Matanuska Valley for 19 plus
years, until he retired in December of 1998.
Don did all the recruiting, the
business/financial end, kept the park up... most everything, for the
Goldpanners until it got to be too much in the late 90's.
Then he turned the recruiting over to the coaches for the most part.
He still manages all segments of keeping a semi-pro team going,
but hires people for more of the field work and hard physical jobs.
During the 70's the team won the NBC National Championship many years.
(They still hold the record for most wins).
During the 80's they quit going to Wichita for the tournament. It
was just too expensive, and the Goldpanners held their own tournaments
in Hawaii, Nevada and California.
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Inside the house. No weather stripping
can
keep that cold out! Clothes next to the outside
wall will freeze
to closet walls
Newsboy Awards
Don, Skip Snedden
First Month in Alaska
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Dave Winfield made
a winter visit. And, those were the years of some incredible
barnstorming trips through the States, playing teams in towns along the
way. Have you seen the movie, "Bingo Long and the Traveling All-Stars
and Motor Kings"? That is fun beyond
description!!!
Don, Ann, son Steve, and two coaches drove vans
of ball players for an exciting road trip in 1991. The team had
played a tournament in Hawaii, regrouped in San Francisco, rented 5
vans, and headed to Texas to play in a tournament there.
They were winning, but due to start another tournament in Reno, NV. Ann and Don loaded
two vans full of extra pitchers and players and drove for two days to
get to Reno. Those
players, with pitchers playing every conceivable position, won the first two games. The main squad won the Texas
tournament so Don quickly flew key players into Reno so they wouldn't
lose while the rest of the team drove up. It was a long drive. The team won the NV tournament also....
drove back to San Francisco and disbanded for the year.
(In 2009 the team
had a split squad, playing their normal Fairbanks schedule,
but the second team recreated a barnstorming trip through Canada
and the States, playing teams from previous trips, and
ultimately ending up at Wichita, KS for the opening game of the
National Tournament. Don and Ann traveled with this
barnstorming team as did a Boston TV Documentary Crew.
6,000 miles on a bus, 26 days and 24 games,
the Fairbanks Goldpanners’ barnstorming tour came to an end!
The tour began on July 6 in Longview, Wash., and included games in
Washington, British Columbia, Idaho, Montana, Colorado, Kansas,
Missouri and Iowa. Fairbanks won three games in one day to win a
tournament in British Columbia early in the 2009 tour.)
56 Below.. everything hidden in dense ice
fog.
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Giving Award
Christmas Program in
Inupiat
Trying to arrest Don
during Golden Days
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In 2000 the fans wanted to go back to the
NBC Tournament in Wichita, so again the team participates. Don was elected to
the NBC Hall of Fame in 2004, and was pleased to get a plaque in
Cooperstown a year later. In April 2009, Don became one
of the inaugural inductees in the Interior Alaska Baseball Hall of
Fame. Often personnel for the ball club, in town for the
summer, would stay in the Dennis Home. One of those was
Allan Simpson, 1972, who started "Baseball America", one of the great
baseball publications of today. He served as Publisher until
retiring in 2006. He worked for Don as Sports Editor at the
Daily News-Miner during his time in Fairbanks as well as for the
Goldpanner team.
Don is Executive Director of
the Boy's Club of
Fairbanks.
The moisture from everyone's
gloves builds up on store doors when
it
is extremely cold. |
News from the Arctic
Village of Old Crow
Ann and Steve
Ann & 4 kids
Scott & Steve
Fairbanks Rec League
Note the baby in the
back of
her parka.
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Through the years in Alaska, there were many
side jobs and just interesting partnerships with friends.
Don was a partner in Sports Suppliers of Alaska... he ran college
extension courses for Chapman College, La Verne, Santa Clara and
California Lutheran in the summers as it was so difficult for teachers
to get Outside for continuing education. During the administration of
Gov. Jay Hammond, Don was named one of the three commissioners on the
Alaska State Athletic Commission. He served on
the Salvation Army Board for years. Don was a boy scout "den mother"....
Don served on the United Service Organization (USO)
Board of Directors, and was a founding director of the Little Dribblers
Basketball Program. Other professional memberships were College
Sports Directors of America, Farthest North Press Club, Alaska Press
Club, NAIA Sports Information Directors Association, Northwest
Sportswriters and Broadcasters Association, American Association of
College Baseball Coaches, and he was a Director of the Fairbanks
Quarterback Club. Don also joined the National Sportscasters and
Sportswriter's Association as a Charter Member.
Don was Sports
Information Director at the University of Alaska and traveled extensively with
the sports teams.
He coached women's basketball, officiated several sports, served on the National Parks and Rec Board
and the Alaska
Olympic Committee. He served 8 years on the International Arctic Winter
Games Board and in 1978 was elected President of the governing body.
He is a lifetime member of the Alaska Arctic Winter Games Society.
Don was invited on the first ever commercial flight to Russia. (The
Russians wouldn't let him come in however as he had a top secret
clearance in the military.) He served on a multitude of local commissions and
traveled constantly, yet always made time to go to the kid's games and
activities. As they got old enough the kids would travel with him, and
they had some real adventures away from mom's watchful eye.
In Nov 1979 he went to work for ASRC,
Arctic Slope Regional Corporation.
News Miner Weight
Loss Contest with
Dennis Fradley
Daily Chore some Winters
Shriner Apts. Westgate Place
The family lived in the first
apartment from March 1968 until July 1971 when they bought a
house on Westgate Place and lived there until they moved to Tempe,
AZ in January 1982.
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Some days were like this!
Ann - a rare quiet moment. |
Dark except for about an hour and a half of
dusk, in Dec and Jan.
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from left, Ann, sister Marlene
Ann's Ceramic Shop |
The Northern lights would light
up the entire sky that far
North. |
Hebards, 7/08 |
Sam Suplizio in Fairbanks
Don & Bill Stroecker |
Donna & Corky Hebard
Great Friends in Fairbanks |
Kathy Johnson working
in
Jade, Inc, Ann's Store |
Mary Jo Migliaccio, Betty
Bernard and Peggy Brown |
Scott at church camp
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Scott - hockey |
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The Kids in Fairbanks
in front of their home. |
Teena at school |
