HUMAN

Name: Dick Teodoro

Age: 70

Residence: Gig Harbor, Washington

Occupation: I’m retired as a general manager of a manufacturing company.

Years involved with Iditarod: Since 1999.

Iditarod Roles: I’m part of the River Crew Checkpoint cabin.

Current Location: Skwentna, Alaska

Date of Photo: March 6, 2022

Temperature: 31 F Outdoors 

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

I first got involved at Iditarod when Todd Silver called me looking for a donation for the YMCA Fundraiser Project. And that was late 98. And then he just happened to say, “By the way, I’ve got an opening that we’re going to be heading up to the Iditarod in March.” Because I had known he had done that and I told him that sounded like a heck of a lot of fun. And he said, “I think if we jumped on board real quick, you could head up there in March of 99 and be part of our Checkpoint Crew.” And that was the beginning of it all.

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

I’m here today involved with the Iditarod at Skwentna because I have enjoyed it so many times in the past. I love the weather. I love the people. I love serving the mushers and it’s a heck of a lot of fun playing with the dogs.

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

One of my most memorable experiences with the Iditarod was probably my second time up here. At that point, we were snow machining in from Big Lake, and it was dark by that time. And we got lost and we weren’t sure where we were going. And there were probably 12 of us on snow machines following each other. And at one point we’d all huddled together and thought, “We got to figure something out here because we don’t know where we’re at.” And at that point we saw a light on a hill thinking that there was a cabin or with somebody with a generator. Somebody ran up and got a couple gallons of gas, found out where we were, put a little gas in each snowmachine and found out how to get back over to Skwentna. And that was a very memorable time. But the beauty about that was I remember laying back on my snowmachine, looking up the sky and seeing more stars than I’d ever seen in my life. It was just a beautiful evening.

What do you know for sure?

Something I know for sure in my life is that I have a family that loves me and that I love and that we are children of God, who is one who watches over us and allows us to enjoy this beautiful creation up here in Alaska.