Alaska News

My brush with celebrity: When the President came to Dillingham

DILLINGHAM -- Jay Hammond was the fourth governor of the State of Alaska and the individual many Alaskans consider the father of the Permanent Fund. Even after he left office, Hammond was one of the most popular, influential and important voices in Alaska history.

When I was about 12 years old, I vomited in the backseat of Hammond's Bush plane.

Until recently, sad to say, that embarrassment was my greatest brush with celebrity even though a few others came close:

• About the same time as the puking incident, Art Davidson, author of the Denali climbing opus, "Minus 148", spent the night at my parents' home.

• While studying journalism in college, I photographed Carroll O'Connor (Archie Bunker from "All in the Family") and consumer advocate and presidential candidate Ralph Nader.

• As a reporter for the Peninsula Clarion, I photographed sprint musher George Attla.

No knock against any of those folks, but they pale in comparison to my experience here on Sept. 2, 2015 — the day the president of the United States flew into town.

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Back when my stomach was churning in Jay Hammond's plane, I could never have envisioned the opportunity to photograph a president. Back then, my main concerns were comic books, playing outdoors, and eating as much as possible.

Circa 1970, Hammond was a member of the Alaska Legislature and an active Bush pilot. My father hired him to fly me and a family friend to a remote lake across Cook Inlet for a day of fishing.

We were perhaps halfway to our destination when my breakfast began to alert me to the fact that it was dissatisfied with its current location and wished to be aired out in the backseat of the floatplane. I notified the pilot of my nausea, and he informed me that a saucepan under my seat could serve as an emergency receptacle.

I searched for and found said receptacle, promptly filling it. When I asked Hammond what to do with the saucepan, he suggested sliding it, still upright, back under the seat until we landed.

Lots of kids get motion sickness, and if that were the end of my embarrassment, perhaps the long passage of years might have erased or blurred the memory. However, I also slipped on the rocks at the lake's edge and soaked myself from the waist down. I can't even remember now whether I caught any fish.

I'd like to say that I was so worldly even at a young age that I sensed something special in Hammond, but the truth is that I didn't even know his name until a few years later when he was elected governor.

Not so with the president.

When Barack Obama, the 44th President of the United States, flew in a powder-blue Boeing 757 to Dillingham, I was thrilled to be included as a member of the White House-sanctioned press pool. I was at the Dillingham Airport for his rainy arrival and departure. I rode in Press Van No. 2 as part of his motorcade, and I scurried with the rest of the photographers, reporters and videographers to each of his venues while he was in town.

On a historic day that marked the first time a sitting president ever visited a Bush community (and later traveled north of the Arctic Circle), I shot hundreds of photographs, including some that appeared on the websites of KTVA in Anchorage and KDLG in Dillingham.

But I'd be less than honest if I said that I smoothly handled my opportunity. (At least I didn't vomit in the back of the press van, and I didn't fall on my butt in the rain at Kanakanak Beach.)

I had waited until Sept. 1 to borrow better camera equipment for the occasion. My unfamiliarity with that equipment led to gaps in my image production, as I fumbled with wet, numb fingers over the digital controls. A local photographer graciously let me borrow a good lens-cleaning cloth, which I used repeatedly in the swirling miasma of mist and rain.

When we exchanged the hypothermic dampness of the beach for the warmth of the middle school gymnasium, the lens of my borrowed camera fogged and would not become unfogged, despite my panicked ministrations with the lens cloth. I couldn't locate the right settings on a second borrowed camera, and so I resorted temporarily to my trusty point-and-shoot, which drew a look of derision and disbelief from a member of the D.C. press corps.

Fortunately, The New York Times was not counting on me for its page-one image.

But the people of Dillingham acquitted themselves well. This may be a small, remote fishing community, but residents really united for this ultimate shindig.

They even enticed a brown bear to appear at a salmon stream along the motorcade route. A day or two before the president arrived, a painted cardboard sign, held in place by white plastic zip ties, materialized on a railing above the creek: "Bearack Viewing Area." On Sept. 2, the sign was still there, but Bearack had wandered off.

Dillinghammers also ordered a week of bluebird skies, but unfortunately their solar subscription ran out a day early. Residents eager for a glimpse of the president had to stand along the roads in liquid sunshine, instead, and try their luck at capturing the moment with wet electronics.

I was particularly excited for the folks over at N&N Market. Just 14 months ago, the store was burglarized. Eight months later, it was forced to liquidate most of its inventory, then shut down and reopen, after its then-parent company departed under financial distress. But on Sept. 2, the president of the United States visited the store, held a baby, high-fived a little boy, shook hands with employees, and talked about economic development.

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Tough to get better P.R. than that.

For many, many people here in Dillingham, this was a brush with celebrity they'll never forget.

Clark Fair, a Kenai Peninsula resident for more than 50 years, is a lifetime Alaskan now living in Dillingham.

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