HUMAN

Name: Jen Reiter

Age: 52

Residence: Baltimore, Maryland

Occupation: Third Grade Teacher

Years involved with Iditarod: 10 years

Iditarod Role: I work for the education department and I am in charge of the Trail Mail Project.

Current Location: Lakefront Hotel, Anchorage, Alaska
Date of Photo: March 3, 2022

Temperature: 68 F Indoors

What, who or how and when did you first get involved with the Iditarod?

I first became involved with Iditarod because I was looking for something that would engage my students. I was teaching in a pretty poor urban area and my kids didn’t know anything outside of Baltimore. So the idea that something like Alaska and Iditarod even existed in the same country as us was very foreign to them. So I was looking for something, a way to hook them and teach them something new.

What is your Why? Why are you here TODAY and involved with the Iditarod?

I’m here today and involved with Iditarod because it’s probably the most powerful teaching tool I’ve ever used. And I think once you come and get involved, you can’t stay away and they have a tendency to keep bringing back the people that dare work hard. So they keep bringing me back and which I’m very grateful for. But I think the main reason why I’m here is because it’s something so powerful and so unique to introduce kids to and they get inspired and believe that they can conquer the world.

Tell me about just one of your most memorable Iditarod experiences.

One of my most memorable Iditarod experiences was when I was teacher on the trail in 2014. And the first night I got to see Michael Williams, Jr. come down the trail in the dark with the headlamp and you could see the steam rising up off the dogs. And he was coming, he was the first one in, to Skwentna. And just watching him come up the river, it’s just something that’s etched in my mind forever. That was the first instant I knew I was there. I had made it. I was standing on the trail. I was a part of it.And then the following year, John Van Zyle’s painting for that year’s painting matched my vision. And I was just all struck. So now that’s hanging in my house. And that is my Iditarod memory.

What do you know for sure?

What I know for sure in life is that you have to find what you’re passionate about and you have to keep going back forward and working for it even when its seems impossible or it seems like the odds are stacked against you. As long as you are working with passion, everything’s going to be fine in the long run.