KDMA Musher's Banquet

Last night was the Kotzebue Dog Mushers Association Banquet. There was a pretty good turn out to watch the mushers who have participated in KDMA races receive their awards. They went through the winners of all the other races and then ednded with the winners of the Arctic Circle Championship and the Kobuk 440.



Third place in the Arctic Circle Championship (ACC)went to Buddoo Gallahorn. His elapsed time was 3 hours 49 minutes and 20 seconds for a total prize of $4,370. Buddoo also won several other awards. He is going to need to build a new wall in his cabin to hang them all on.



Second place in the ACC went to Bill Kornmuller of Willow, AK. His elapsed time was 3 hours 43 minutes and 28 seconds for a total prize of $4,000.



First place went to Terry Streeper of Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. His elapsed time was 3 hours 32 minutes and 43 seconds for a total prize of $5,200.

Next up were the awards for the Kobuk 440. First were the Humanitarian and Sportsmanship awards. These are nominated by and voted on by the mushers that participated in the 440.



Uncle Louie Nelson won the Sportsmanship award. He finished the race with the 12 dogs that he started with. Louie said that this Kobuk 440 is his last race and that he is going to pass his dogs onto his son Robert Nelson who ran as a rookie in this years Iditarod.



Sebastian Schnuelle won the Humanitarian Award for excellent dog care during the race.

Now onto the final standings of the Kobuk 440.



13th place with an elapsed time of 88 hours 14 minutes and a prize of $1,300 went to Josh Cadzow of Fort Yukon, AK. Josh won this years Yukon Quest 300. His uncle Jay came with him to Kotzebue as a handler and ended up running Bung Nelson's dogs int he Arctic Circle Championship (and winning the sportsmanship award for that race).


12th place with an elapsed time of 85 hours and 55 minutes and a prize of $1,700 went to Jason Young of Willow AK..



11th place with an elapsed time of 74 hours 29 minutes with a prize of $2,000 goes to Ed Iten.



10th place with an elapsed time of 73 hours and 05 minutes with a prize of $2,002 went to Michelle Phillips of Tagish, Yukon Territory, Canada.



9th place with an elapsed time of 72 hours and 41 minutes with a prize of $2,750 went to Bryan Mills. Bryan said that even compared to the Iditirod the 440 is a tough race.



8th place went Uncle Louie os Kotzebue (Fish Creek) AK with an elapsed time of 72 hours and 33 minutes with a prize of $3,300.


7th place went to Sebastian Schnuelle of Whitehorse, Yukon Territory, Canada with an elapsed time of 72 hours and 06 minutes and a prize of $3,850. Sebastian said that he has wanted to come up to race the 440 for years but he alwqays chickened out. He said he was always told it was a tough race and that he certainly got his money's worth.



6th place with an elapsed time of 71 hours and 48 minutes and a prize of $4,400 went to Eric Sieh of Kotzebue. He said that he wanted to thank John and Iva baker for getting him into dog mushing. Now he can't stop.



5th place with an elapsed time of 70 hours and 35 minutes and a prize of $4,550 went to Hugh Neff of Skagway, AK and Whithorse Yukon Territory, Canada. He said "This is my 5th 440 and the funnest."



4th place with an elapsed time of 70 hours and 26 minutes and a prize of $6,600 went to Ken Anderson of Fairbanks, AK.



3rd place with an elapsed time of 68 hours and 38 minutes and a prize of $7,700 went to Martin Buser of Big Lake, AK.



2nd place with an elapsed time of 67 minutes and 56 seconds and a prize of $8,800 went to Mike Jayne of Fairbanks, AK. Mike said that he decided to run the 440 at the last minute. He was running Ray Reddington's dogs.



And the winner of the 2008 Kobuk 440, with an elapsed time of 66 hours and 58 minutes, was John Baker of Kotzebue. His prize was $11,000.