The 45-year-old Wright Champaine is best known for being a star in sprint racing circles, having won the Anchorage Fur Rendezvous World Championship and Fairbanks' Open North American Championship three times each. In 1989, she captured both titles in the same year. She also won the women's classes of those events eight times each. Wright Champaine has been a leader in opening the way for women in unlimited-class sprint racing, making the separate women's class obsolete in most respects.

But in addition to her competitive successes, Wright Champaine has excelled in non-competitive ways, sharing her time and expertise with other mushers, said Forsberg. Wright Champaine has been an active member of the Alaska Dog Mushers' Association (ADMA), grooming trails and helping in whatever ways were needed to pull together events. In years past, when there was a sweepstakes program, she chaired the committee and helped to raise the purse for the North American Championship. She has also helped with ADMA's junior musher programs and served as a panelist at the club's annual sled dog symposium. In November, Wright Champaine and her husband, Charlie Champaine, helped Iditarod musher DeeDee Jonrowe, who was injured in an automobile accident (see page 6), by bringing Jonrowe's dogs to their home in Salcha for training.

The Lifetime Achievement award was presented to Wright Champaine at ADMA's fund raising auction in October. Four-time Iditarod champ Susan Butcher, who attended the auction, said Wright Champaine was not told about the award in advance and was obviously moved when she accepted it. Many members of Wright Champaine's family attended the presentation, including husband Charlie, a sprint mushing great in his own right, father Gareth Wright, also a speed mushing champion and the founder of the Aurora line of huskies; stepmother Miranda Wright; sister Shannon Erhart; son Ramy Brooks, an Iditarod musher; daughter-in-law Cathy Brooks, organizer of the junior mushing symposium in Fairbanks, and granddaughter Abby Brooks. In her acceptance of the PRIDE award, Wright Champaine cited her father and son as being two of her own heroes.

Wright Champaine was presented with a framed Jon Van Zyle poster autographed by five recent Iditarod champions. The Mush with PRIDE Lifetime Achievement Award is presented to a musher who exemplifies the goals and spirit of PRIDE throughout his or her career. The first award was presented last year to Mary Shields.

Wright Champaine began mushing at an early age, during a time when dogs were a common method of transportation in Alaska. She began entering formal races when she was a teenager living in Fairbanks. Not only did Wright Champaine go on to win Alaska's biggest sprint events, but she also ran the Iditarod once and in 1990 won the Alpirod, a European stage race. Wright Champaine and her husband retired from competitive mushing at the end of last season, citing a desire to spend more time with their family.