As part of its 75th anniversary celebration of Women of Voice and Vision, Scripps College presents 1985 Iditarod winner Libby Riddles who will give the lecture “If You Are Not the Lead Dog, the Scenery Never Changes” on Tuesday, February 26, at 7 p.m. in the Hampton Room of the Malott Commons on the Scripps campus. Immediately following will be a reception and book signing. This event is free and open to the public.
Riddles is the first woman musher to win the Alaskan Iditarod, a grueling 1,049 mile sled dog race from Anchorage to Nome that commemorates the famous 1925 Serum Run. Riddles’ winning time was eighteen days, twenty minutes and seventeen seconds, despite a crippling blizzard and near-disastrous trail conditions. In addition to her victory, she was named the 1985 Sportswoman of the Year by the Women’s Sports Foundation and honored by the Iditarod veterinarians with the 1985 Leonhard Seppala Humanitarian Award for her humane treatment of her dogs.
An avid advocate for the sport of mushing, Riddles continues to breed and train sled-dogs and compete in races around the world. She has written three books–Race Across Alaska, Danger, the Dog Yard Cat, and Storm Run–and was instrumental in producing an Iditarod school curriculum. Riddles currently resides in Homer, Alaska, and maintains a kennel of 42 racing sled dogs.