Ahead of this year’s race, KNOM rebroadcasted its coverage of the first-ever Iditarod Sled Dog Race in 1973. It took champion Dick Wilmarth 20 days to make it from Anchorage to Nome. Soon after re-airing, his daughter, Rebecca, reached out to KNOM to ask more about the broadcast—it was her first time listening to it, and hoped to preserve the memory for her children and grandchildren.
After his extraordinary win, Dick took his $12,000 prize pot (equivalent to more than $90,000 today) and invested in gold mining equipment. Rebecca said the family eventually settled in Red Devil, Alaska, along the Kuskokwim River.
During her trip to Nome to see this year’s Iditarod finish, Rebecca sat down with KNOM’s Community Relations Manager Quinn White to talk more about her upbringing and her father’s Iditarod legacy more than 50 years after his win. Not only did he make history as the race’s first champion, Rebecca said, “He just proved it was possible.”
