Passing the yellow bib
Musher Ryan Redington (left), leader for IPSSSDR Day 2, passes the yellow race leader bib over to musher Bruce Magnusson, who led the race for Day 3. IPSSSDR Founder Frank Teasley is in the middle.
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Welcome Mushers Banquet
The Pinedale 'Welcome Mushers!' banquet had great food, live music, and an energetic slide show of the 2011 IPSSSDR. The banquet was generously sponsored by Shell Exploration and Production.
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Donation to Public Health
James Duran (right) gives a donation check for $1200 on behalf of Shell Exploration and Production to Stephanie Lundberg with Sublette County Public Health to go towards their immunizations programs.
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Screen Door Porch
The band travels with the IPSSSDR and performs live at each of the community events.
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IPSSSDR - Pinedale Stage Stop – Welcome Mushers!
by Dawn Ballou, Pinedale Online!
January 29, 2012
The International Pedigree Stage Stop Sled Dog Race (IPSSDR) arrived in Pinedale on Sunday, January 29th, the third day of the race. The nine-day sled dog race started in Jackson Hole, Wyoming on Friday, January 27th. It will end on Saturday, February 4th in Park City, Utah. The race is in its 17th year.
The IPSSSDR was started in 1996 by Sublette County resident, Frank Teasley, to make sled dog racing more accessible to the public. The event is sponsored by Pedigree Food for Dogs, which generously donates supplies of dog food to the stage stop sponsoring towns. Pedigree supports a wide range of programs that promote responsible pet ownership and highlight the contributions dogs make to society. The race also helps to raise money and awareness for immunizations in local communities, patterning off the founding origins of the famous Iditarod sled dog race held in Alaska.
The race starts in Jackson, Wyoming and stops in Lander, Pinedale, Big Piney & Marbleton, Alpine, Evanston, Mountain View/Lyman, and ends in Park City, Utah. Each stage stop host community holds a musher banquet or celebration the night before their race. The banquets are a chance for the public to meet the mushers and socialize. Some of the mushers have been in the IPSSSDR many year and the communities enjoy the annual reunion with the mushers and their families.
Pinedale held a "Welcome Mushers" banquet on Sunday evening in the Lovatt Room of the Sublette County Library. The banquet was free to the public due to the very generous sponsorship of Shell Rocky Mountain Production gas company. Shell also donated $1500 to the Sublette County Public Health Department to help with their immunization program. The evening’s events included a Calcutta to auction off the mushers. A portion of the money raised from that Calcutta was given to the Sublette County Library Foundation. The rest was given to the Pinedale Library to help pay for the Gayle McMurry Kinnison labyrinth which is worked in as an elaborate floor design of the library’s large meeting room.
The IPSSSDR also includes a Junior Musher program to introduce and encourage youth to become involved in the sport of sled dog racing. This year’s Sublette County Junior Mushers are 11-year-old Garett Schamber, a 5th grader from Pinedale Elementary School; 11-year-old Garrett Lowham, a 6th grader from Pinedale Middle school; 11-year-old Haley Boulter, a 6th grader from Pinedale Middle School; 9-year old Israel (Izzy) Seemann a 4th grader from Big Piney Elementary School; and 11-year-old Justin Seeman a 5th grader from Big Piney Elementary School.
The Pinedale Stage Stop begins at 10AM on Monday, January 30th. The Start and Finish line for the race are in the snowmobile parking lot at the Bridger-Teton National Forest at the end of the Cora Highway 352. The teams will run a 35-mile loop course that will end at the same place as the starting line.
From Pinedale, the teams will head to Big Piney/Marbleton for the next stage. There will be a "Meet the Mushers" Banquet starting at 6PM at the Marbleton Senior Center. Everyone is welcome to come and enjoy a spaghetti dinner with wonderful Dutch-oven cooked delights. Then on Tuesday morning, the mushers will run the Big Piney/Marbleton stage of the race, a 54-mile loop race which begins at the Middle Piney parking lot at 9AM. From Big Piney/Marbleton, the teams will head to Alpine.
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