HUMAN
Name: Wendy Durst
Age: 54
Residence: Lafayette, Colorado
Occupation: Fifth grade teacher
Years involved with Iditarod: I have been physically involved in volunteering at The Start for three years. This is my third time, but I started teaching about the Iditarod about 15 years ago.
Iditarod Role: This year, I am here to volunteer as a dog handler at the start and the restart and to help park mushers at the start. But I’m most excited because I’m flying out onto the trail to Nikolai, to volunteer at a checkpoint this year.
Current Location: Lakefront Hotel in Anchorage.
Date of Photo: March 3, 2023
Temperature: It is 68 degrees here.
What, who or how and when did you first get involved with the Iditarod?
Approximately 15 years ago, I moved to a new school teaching third grade, and my colleague said to me, “Are you going to teach about the Iditarod this year?” And I said, “The Idita what?” I had never heard of it before. And since then, I’ve gone off the deep end and probably owned 30 plus books of my own at home, that I’ve read about the event, and taught 15 years of students about it.
What is your Why? Why are you here TODAY and involved with the Iditarod?
I am here today involved with the Iditarod because I will never be a musher who goes a thousand miles across Alaska, and I feel like becoming involved with it, especially volunteering on the trail, is about as close to the excitement as I will ever get, and I felt like I’d won the lottery when I was selected to go on the trail this year.
Tell me about just one of your most memorable Iditarod experiences:
One of my most memorable Iditarod experiences was the year that Pete Kaiser won the race. He came across the finish line while my students were at school and we watched it live. And I just remember being so excited that he was either the first, or the first in many, many years, native Alaskan to win the race and tears were streaming down my face and my students could feed off the passion that I had for the event.
What in life do you know for sure?
What I know for sure in life is that adventures make life worth living. I like to have adventures to look forward to, and each year the Iditarod provides that for me and many other people out there. Getting to live vicariously through the mushers adventures is one of the highlights of every year for me.