ANCHORAGE, Alaska -- A cadre of pint-sized cooks stirred pots of moose stew, doled out bowls of spaghetti and prepared grilled cheese sandwiches for dog-tired mushers arriving at the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race checkpoint in the village of Nikolai.
The students at the Top of the Kuskokwim School served food, and if need be, carried it to tables set up in the gymnasium, where a large banner welcomed Iditarod mushers to the village 784 miles from the finish line in Nome.
"We get mushers in throughout the night and usually have two to three people here cooking all night, just to make sure that these mushers who come in at 4 or 5 in the morning, after taking care of their dogs, have something warm to eat," said 16-year-old Phil Runkle, a sophomore who helped organize the school's 17 students for the Iditarod invasion.
