2014 Year in Pictures: Loren Holmes

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A Cessna 172RG crashed on Anchorage's Boniface Parkway on Tuesday, Jan 7, 2014. All the occupants were uninjured, and the pilot managed to land on the street between traffic after his plane lost power.

Start to finish, 2014 was memorable. In March, I saw Dallas Seavey win his second Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race, something that seemed impossible until a fierce storm stopped the mushers ahead of him with less than 30 miles to go in the 1,000-mile long race across Alaska from Willow to Nome.

Spring brought sad news from the Interior village of Tanana, where two Alaska State Troopers were killed while responding to a disturbance, as well as Anchorage, where a 15-year-old girl was shot and killed while asleep in her bed.

Early summer brought the Funny River forest fire, which burned over 100,000 acres and nearly reached some neighborhoods near Soldotna, during a year that saw very few major fires in Alaska.

On July 4, Matt Kenney, who was seriously injured in a fall during the 2012 Mount Marathon race, achieved a remarkable milestone and finished the grueling 3.5 mile mountain race.

In October, same-sex couples began to marry, six months after five couples sued the state, overturning a constitutional amendment passed by voters in 1998.

November saw soldiers reunited with their families, and December brought Alaska a new governor and lieutenant governor, the first so-called "unity ticket" in state history.

Contact Alaska Dispatch News Multimedia Editor Loren Holmes at loren(at)alaskadispatch.com.