Husky News

FIRST LADY: Wife of race’s organizer recalled as happy, supportive of “crazy idea.”

WILLOW — Vi Redington couldn’t be there in person, but the much-loved wife of Iditarod founder Joe Redington attended Sunday’s Iditarod restart in spirit.

Vi Redington died Saturday after years battling cancer. Her husband died in 1999. The couple helped start the race in 1973 and are credited with keeping the Iditarod going during its lean early years. Their Knik homestead was a center of the Alaska mushing community.

Redington’s grandson, Ryan Redington, is racing this year.

About 15 minutes before the restart began Sunday afternoon on Willow Lake, an announcer’s voice rang out over the crowds: “Yesterday, our Iditarod family lost its first lady. … Vi, we miss you but we are so happy that you’re once again by Joe’s side.”

Willow musher DeeDee Jonrowe said she and Vi Redington had breast cancer surgery at the same time in 2002. They shared grueling chemotherapy treatments too.

Jonrowe said the treatments were “pretty awful” and she was 30 years younger than Vi Redington. But the older woman, known for her sweet disposition, faced chemo with “the same amount of courage she faced everything,” Jonrowe said.

“Everybody always thought Joe was the tough one,” she said a few minutes later. “Joe was a tough one, but Vi was the toughest.”

Mitch Seavey, 2004 Iditarod champion, remembered visiting the Redingtons in Knik with his father Dan, a race veteran, during the race’s early years.

“I was just a kid, listening in the corner,” Seavey remembered. “She was always happy and smiling … just so supportive of Joe even when a lot of us thought he was out of his mind.”

Source: The Anchorage Daily News