Richard Kelley and his wife, Susan.
By Joanne Potts, Assistant to the Race Director and Richard Kelley
Richard Kelley has been volunteering at the Iditarod since 2008. He was born and raised in southwestern Pennsylvania. He was raised in a log house built in the early 1800’s about 12 miles from where he now lives. He says that he was brought up ‘in the sticks.’ They didn’t get inside plumbing until 1959.
In February of 1965, his Grandfather asked him to come and stay with them and help out on their vegetable farm and large greenhouse. He lived with them for the summer and went to church with them, where he met Susan. That fall they started dating and in September of 1967, they married. Their six children were born in the next eight and a half years. They all still live in the same area in southwestern Pennsylvania.
While working for Susan’s dad in February of 1968, Richard and Susan’s dad started selling chain saws and Susan joined that partnership. “Now,” Richard says, “I work for her at D & K Sales & Service.”
Richard also worked in a bolt factory, making bolts for the Alaska pipeline. He ran a Boltmaker “My job was to set up and run the machine, from putting the wire in one end to watching the finished bolt come out the other end.” When the factory closed, Richard explained that the saw shop wasn’t making enough money to support them so they became dairy farmers in 1986. “We about starved the first year but we ate lots of eggs.” They milked 20 to 29 cows per day for 15 years.
In 1993, Susan sent Richard on a trip around the United States. He bought a car from a junk yard for $200. “I had been a Mountain Man since I was 10 years old and I wanted to see Yellowstone, the Grand Canyon, and six of the original Rendezvous sites. So I left Pennsylvania in my newly purchased ‘junk’ car and that trip took me 9000 miles in 37 days for $507. When I got back home, Susan asked where I wanted to go next.” Richard’s dad had always talked about going to Alaska. He wanted to homestead there when he returned from World War 2, but he was talked out of living that dream. Richard always had the desire to fulfill his dad’s dream. So he responded, Alaska, of course!
“For 15 years before I ever went to Iditarod, when we were hunting in Pennsylvania, I would sleep outside in the winter in my Korean War surplus sleeping bag under a mountain in a lean to with temperatures down to 10 below 0 and told everyone I was in training for the Iditarod, never expecting to go to the Iditarod.
Susan began saving all the money that had been hers for spending and unbeknownst to me, saved for 15 years, and in 2007, at Christmas, with all our kids here, she gave me a trip to follow the Iditarod Race in March of 2008. It was a twelve – day trip by bush plane. We stopped in McGrath and I stayed outside at the checkpoint two nights and the second night, Mark Cox, McGrath checker, invited me to come in and sign the volunteer roster. I was now officially an Iditarod volunteer!
What a fantastic trip. I didn’t think I’d ever get back to Alaska or the Iditarod so I stayed awake 87 hours, from the time we left Talkeetna until we arrived in Unalakleet. In Cripple I did an interview with the Discovery Channel and stayed out overnight again in McGrath. In Galena, I stayed with Jon Korta’s wife. I saw Lance come in and 11 other mushers while in Galena but missed DeeDee. We flew from Galena to Unalakleet and I finally went to bed. Twelve hours after Lance came into Nome, I was sitting across a table from him. Wow! All I could think of while on that trip was that Susan had spent all that money on me and her car had 287,000 miles on it!
I thought that was going to be my only time in Alaska. The 29th of May I received an email from the Iditarod, from Joanne Potts, inviting me to the volunteer picnic. I took that email into the house and showed Susan who said, “I guess you’re going to have to go, spoiled brat.”
That was the beginning of the end. I’ve been back every spring and every summer since 2008. Susan came in 2010 for the picnic. After the picnic, we met a lady walking out of church and she offered us a cabin in Homer built back in the 1930’s. I agreed to take a look at it. That deal fell through but it was fun to work around the old cabin clearing the devils club and trees going in the windows.
While Susan was in Alaska in 2010 for the picnic, she made the statement, “I don’t need to come back again.” But by the time I got back six days later, she said, “I think I want to go back again, but only in the summer.” In the summer of 2011, on the return trip, she made the statement, “I am coming back in March and going to ride out of town on a sled!” So I took her to Sixth Avenue Outfitters and bought her a parka. Susan has been to the Iditarod five times during March and to the volunteer picnic five summers. She was Michelle Phillips’ IditaRider five years in a row.
During the 2015 race, I slept outside four nights in a row because there were too many people in the Galena checkpoint. It was 40 below. I was well trained for that experience after my 15 years of ‘training for the Iditarod’ by sleeping outside on hunting trips!”
Richard has been to Alaska 18 times. He says he’s been a gopher for Mark Nordman in Anchorage and is always willing to do anything Mark or anyone asks him to do. He’s been out on the trail in Cripple, Iditarod, Galena, Unalakleet, McGrath, and Finger Lake. “I am basically a pooper scooper. I help set up the checkpoints and every once in a while, I get a stint at being a checker. As you go along, you end up getting more volunteer jobs. Susan even got to go to McGrath in 2016 and do some cooking for the volunteers. It’s been a wonderful experience. We have met people from all over the world.
I promote the Iditarod every day. Susan says once I get started talking Iditarod, work doesn’t get done. Everyone who comes into the shop ends up hearing about the Iditarod and my experiences in Alaska.”
Richard and Susan have run the saw shop for 48 years. They started out selling Stihl saws and other Stihl products and now also sell Husqvarna products. Their son and daughter work with them. Richard customers explained, “When we started, 95% of our family were loggers. My Father-in-law ran a saw mill behind the shop until the early 90’s. Then my oldest son ran it until he had a stroke in 2014. Now there are only about four sawmills in the whole area still running. Our customers are tree trimmers and consumers.”
Richard has been a lay minister for 43 years at a little chapel in the mountains of Pennsylvania. “We started going there every weekend in 1973 and we’re still going. About 30 people were attending services at that little chapel at the beginning. With the state buying up the land for 
state game lands, we are down to about 8 in attendance.”
Always busy people, they are on the Board of Directors of the Dawson Grange Fair, their local community fair, and they work with the 4H Saddle Club. They have six grand kids ranging in age from 6 to 18. While no longer officially farming, they have 20 acres of pasture, 5 horses, 3 steers, 1 dog, and a multitude of barn cats.
Even while living their ‘other’ life, Iditarod is always on their mind. They start planning for the next Iditarod as soon as the last one is over. Richard says, “The best part of being in Alaska other than seeing so much of the country is being part of the Iditarod family and working with folks from all over the world. I have a great time with people in the villages, too. Of course we’re looking forward to being part of the Iditarod again in 2017.”
Images of Volunteer Richard Kelley
Our Volunteer Picnic is a great place to catch up with good friends.
Richard helping to set up for the volunteer picnic
Read an article about Richard, Bullskin Man Enjoys Alaskan Adventure, from 2012.
