County businesses help dress team in rural Alaska
GOLOVIN, Alaska — Two Butler County businesses have made special deliveries to help a small rural school in Alaska dress a cross country team this year.
Up-N-Running in Valencia sent five pairs of shoes to the Martin L. Olson School in Golovin, while team jerseys were bought from the Mark-Im custom clothing store in Butler.
The businesses were connected to the school more than 3,500 miles away by Daniel Dickey, a 2007 graduate of Seneca Valley High School.
Dickey teaches math at the Alaskan high school and is a coach for the cross country team.
“Golovin is the typical bush Alaskan village,” Dickey said, adding there are no roads connecting the town of about 150 people to the outside world.
“In the summer you can get here by boat or plane. In the winter, when the water freezes, people snow machine back and forth (to the nearest town).”
Snowmobiles are called snow machines in Alaska, Dickey clarified.
There are no paved roads in the village. Many homes opt for ATVs over cars.
“Even the landing strip for the plane is gravel,” Dickey said.
Golovin is about 65 miles east of Nome, which is famous for being the concluding site of the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race. The village is one of the checkpoints for the famous race.
Dickey's high school has about 20 students from sixth through 12th grades and four teachers.
It is part of the Bering Strait School District, which includes 15 schools across about 80,000 square miles — making the district about the size of Nebraska.
For comparison, the Seneca Valley School District covers about 100 square miles.
Dickey said the village has one store, a post office, and a church. Its residents depend on hunting, fishing and picking berries for food.
“That convenience of driving to the supermarket isn't here,” Dickey said. “Basically anything you need, you need to plan ahead for.”
One thing that Dickey's cross country team needed was running gear. For that, he got help from back home.
“Last summer he told me about how he coaches cross country in Alaska,” said Ed Doyle, owner of Up-N-Running in Valencia. “That's when I let him know about the hardship case program we participate in.”The program, Doyle said, allows retailers to send defective or out-of-date shoes to charities.Doyle said the term defective in this sense is fairly liberal.“They may have a small scuff or a couple loose threads,” he said. “But we're not allowed to sell them.”Doyle said he gave Dickey a couple pairs of shoes last summer on the spot. This year, he sent another shipment to support the club.“I received a very nice letter from one of the girls on the team and a picture of her running,” Doyle said. “I thought that was really neat. And she's apparently doing quite well.”Dickey said his mother, Diane Smith, got the custom shirts with the school name printed on them from Mark-Im in Butler and shipped them out.Dickey said the club is appreciative of the support as the girls don't have access to stores like students in Butler County.Participating in sports is far different in the rural village than from most schools.Since there are no roads connecting the villages, Dickey said the schools in the district use airplanes to take student athletes to events.The small planes can hold 9 people plus a pilot.For efficiency purposes, most athletic events are meets that include a number of the schools in the district.Dickey has been teaching at the school since graduating from Penn State in 2011. He was the head coach of the cross country team for two years. This year he is an assistant coach since he is involved with other school activities.Dickey said he got the opportunity to go to Alaska while at a job fair in Pittsburgh.“There were recruiters there for schools in our area as well as Alaska and Hawaii,” he said.Dickey turned down the tropical beaches of Hawaii for the frozen tundra of Alaska.“I've always liked winter,” Dickey said. “And it had more of the experience I was looking for.”His parents are thrilled their son had the opportunity. Even if it took a little convincing.“When Dan first told me about the opportunity, I thought it was an incredible adventure,” said his father, Jeff Smith, who is Butler's treasurer. “Mom wasn't quite as sure.”While any parent may have questions about their child moving to the Alaskan wilderness, Smith said his wife has come around.“She's on board,” he joked. “And it has turned out to be an amazing experience for Dan.”While Dickey visits home during the summer break, he has the full experience of northern Alaska's long, dark winters.While the village is south of the Arctic Circle, it still has little daylight during parts of the winter months.“We sometimes have about 1 to 2 hours of daylight per day,” Dickey said.The cross country season leads into winter weather, which typically begins in October.Dickey said the cross country season is shorter than what students have in the lower 48 states because of the early snow. It's one last chance to enjoy the outdoors before the bitter cold sets in.“It gets pretty cold,” Dickey said. “The worst temperature I've experienced is negative 20 or 30 degrees.”
