Photo By Spc. Alicia Clark | Aidan Heinz, 5, of Houston, Texas, enjoys his first dog sled ride Saturday during the...... read more read more
Subscribe
By Spc. Elayseah Woodard-Hinton and Pfc. Alicia C. Torbush
20th Public Affairs Detachment
FORT WAINWRIGHT, Alaska – Morale Welfare and Recreation held its 13th annual March Madness event, at Birch Hill.
The March Madness tradition began in 1995 as a "way of giving back to folks who came out through the winter time," said Dave Start, business operations officer, directorate for family, MWR.
March Madness was originally a two-day event, held on the weekend for families in the Fairbanks and Ft. Wainwright community to come out and enjoy activities on Birch Hill. This year however, an additional day was added to the event specifically for Soldiers.
"We were feeling the Soldiers were getting left out," said Start. "And we are here for the Soldiers."
"Planning for Friday's Soldier day began about eight to 10 weeks ago," said Mike Gould, community recreation director. "We developed the activities based on people's input from MWR. We also got community recreation division involved and support from the physical fitness center."
The events on Friday included the "Mad Dash," a three-mile race up a narrow trail to the top of the ski hill and back down again. A skeet competition, tubing races, and a Lounge Lizard's race where Soldiers raced their homemade sleds down the hill.
Saturday and Sunday's events were primarily focused on families.
Events for Saturday included dog sled rides for the kids, a coloring contest, a tubing race for kids ages seven and older, snow machine trail rides, a pudding eating contest and an X-Games-style ski and snowboard competition.
This year was the first time that "K-9s for Kids," a volunteer organization, has done the sled rides for March Madness said John E. Binder, owner of K-9s for Kids.
Binder had 17 dogs running on Saturday, while Matt and Donna Thompson, local mushers, provided another 10 dogs.
Unfortunately, due to warm weather, Binder had to pull the dogs early.
On Sunday, events included a spouse skeet competition, an Alpine downhill ski race, another X-Games ski and snowboard challenge and the final event, the ski and snowboard surf.
Sunday marked Birch Hill's official closure for the winter season. However, ski, snowboard and tubing enthusiasts can expect the hill to re-open later this year during Veteran's Day weekend.
| Date Taken: | 03.30.2008 |
| Date Posted: | 05.16.2008 12:15 |
| Story ID: | 19470 |
| Location: | US |
| Web Views: | 83 |
| Downloads: | 69 |
This work, Soldiers, Families participate in Morale Welfare Recreation events marking final weekend of season, by SPC Alicia Clark, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
No keywords found.
