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10 YEARS AGO

Oct. 18, 1998 — National Weather Service forecasters figured Fairbanksans would wake up to a “light dusting” of snow Saturday morning. Not a dump of up to 5 inches. What happened, said Randy Settje of the Fairbanks forecast office, was a very localized snowstorm that developed almost exclusively over Fairbanks. “Just a fairly small area ... almost over the top of us,” Settje said. “That’s a hard thing to forecast.” While the University of Alaska Fairbanks reported 4.5 inches and downtown had 3.9 inches, North Pole had only a quarter of an inch. There was but a light dusting at Eielson Air Force Base, and no accumulation reported in Nenana.

25 YEARS AGO

Oct. 18, 1983 — A documentary about Alaska, in which Fairbanksans and photographers Garry Russell and Mark Badger took part, won an Emmy award for music Monday night and a production by CBS News, in which Russell and Fairbanksan Tod McDonald assisted, won an award for cinematography. According to Alaska Video Productions partner Ted Lehne, a production produced by BBI Productions of Boston titled, “Alaska: A Story of A Dream,” did not win an Emmy for its cinematography.

However, it did win an Emmy for its music. A production done by CBS’ Terry Drinkwater won an Emmy for coverage of the nation’s unemployment. Lehne said today that Russell, working the camera, and McDonald, working the sound, shot footage in Tok for the unemployment series on a family driving up the Alcan Highway from the Lower 48 to Anchorage looking for work. The segment was done in early 1982.

50 YEARS AGO

Oct. 18, 1958 — Denali went to work today. He’s the husky pup presented to the University of Washington by the Associated Students of the University of Alaska. He went to work in a new job, the first he’s had, as mascot of the UW Huskies and on public view at the Husky-University of Southern California at Los Angeles game in Seattle. Denali is the successor to Waskie II, who died last spring at the age of 14. Some of the students had a look at the Fairbanks-bred god at a rally last night. The activity scared the devil out of the little guy, he’s only 7 weeks old, but he bore up quite well.

75 YEARS AGO

Oct. 18, 1933 — Alaska Day today was observed in Fairbanks by the closing of most of the public offices. The post office and virtually all business places kept open as usual, however. The day marks the anniversary of the transfer of the Territory from Russia to the United States. The transfer took place Oct. 18, 1867 by the lowering of the Russian and the raising of the United States flag at Sitka.