spotlight
Gumbie and the pack training for the Iditarod.
IT’S ALL
ABOUT THE
DOGS
DR. DOUG AICHELE AND HIS
CHAMPION FRIEND GUMBIE
ARE BRINGING THE IDITAROD
EXPEREINCE TO STILLWATER
BY SARAH LITTLE, EDITOR
PHOTOS PROVIDED
When you look into his
eyes, you feel like you have
seen the world. You feel like he
knows your soul, and you can
imagine that he’s seen some
pretty amazing things. You can
look at him and know that he’s
an athlete—you may not know
that as far as his sport goes,
he’s an Olympic quality athleteone comparable to the stars in
Sochi competing right now.
He’s raced the big ones. He’s
fought the hard fight, and now
he’s living out his reward, in
Stillwater, in the loving home of
Drs. Doug and Kathryn Aichele.
I’m not talking about a human,
but yet, when people speak of
him, its in almost a human-like
reverence. I’m talking about
Goodboy Gumbie, and I was introduced to him via his handler,
his second “human” father, Dr.
Doug Aichele, OSU Professor
Emeritus and Regents Professor
(Fmr).
Doug Aichele was introduced to sled dogs almost by accident. His wife, Kathryn, was
teaching graduate coursework
at the University of Alaska –
Southeast in Juneau when
she found a book she brought
back to Doug, written about
the founder of the Iditarod
Commemorative
race,
Joe
Redington, who happened to
be from Okeene, Oklahoma.
Mixing two interests, a famous
musher and a man from
Okahoma, she thought it might
be a story Doug would find interesting. That he did, little
did she know just how much it
would interest him.
The Aichele family has
always been the outdoorsy
FEBRUARY 2014 | STILLWATER LIVING MAGAZINE
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