| Anchorage, Alaska | February 14, 2012 |
| Previous Member | Anchorage Daily News Iditarod Hall of Fame | Next Member |
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| Greatest accomplishment: Won three Iditarods in just nine years of racing. Vital stats: Born: North Fork, Calif. Hometown: Denali Park, Alaska Age: 43 Best finish: 1st-- 1993, 1996, 1998 Fastest time: 1996 -- 9 days, 5 hours, 43 minutes, 13 seconds Total winnings: $268,868 Other awards: First to Yukon, 1991, 1993; Halfway, 1993, 1997; Gold Coast, 1996; Safety to Nome, 1993; Golden Harness, 1993. Race record: |
 Anne Raup / Anchorage Daily News
Jeff King, who survived a fierce coastal storm to win the 1998 Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race, has been selected to the Anchorage Daily News Iditarod Hall of Fame. The victory was King's third, putting him in fast company. He joined Rick Swenson, Susan Butcher and Martin Buser in the group that has won the race at least three times. Swenson has five victories, Butcher four and Buser three. All three are already Hall of Fame members. Among them, the foursome has won 60 percent of all the Iditarods run. King was selected by a group of Daily News editors, reporters and photographers with experience covering the race. ''Jeff King is one of the most intensely competitive mushers there is,'' said Doug O'Harra, who covered last year's race. King's competitiveness has helped him carve out an enviable record in distance dog mushing. He won the Iditarod three times -- 1993, 1996 and 1998 -- in only nine years of racing, took first place in the Yukon Quest in 1989 and won the Kuskokwim 300 four times, the last in 1997. King also has two of the three fastest times ever recorded in the Iditarod. King started mushing dogs after he moved to Denali Park from California in 1975. ''I ran a little trap line, lived in a wall tent in Denali, hauled freight for all the purists that wanted to come in from the north side,'' he said. His first competitive race was a 140-mile run from Nenana to Manley Hot Springs and back. King finished third. He's been racing ever since. He and his wife, Donna, have three daughters, all of whom have grown up with dogs and mushing. ''Donna was pregnant with our oldest when we ran the first Yukon Quest,'' King said. ''That was a lot of new experiences jammed into the front seat of a Toyota pickup.'' The Kings live now in a log home that they built, lost to fire and rebuilt. The home also is headquarters for their Goose Lake Kennels. King has a shrewd eye for dogs. ''He has earned a reputation as a meticulous and careful dog trainer,'' O'Harra said. ''His performance often illustrates the notion that winning races hinges on dog care.'' Dogs, King said, are what is most important to him about the mushing experience. ''I can't imagine not having dogs,'' he said. ''But I can imagine not racing.'' |
-- Jeff King