[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 151 (2005), Part 22]
[Senate]
[Page 30499]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                          COLONEL NORM VAUGHAN

  Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I rise in tribute to COL Norm Vaughan who 
accompanied ADM Richard Byrd to Antarctica. He celebrates his 100th 
birthday today. The Anchorage Daily News has printed an article by 
Carol Phillips talking about Vaughan as a great man and good friend. I 
ask unanimous consent to print the article in the Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

             [From the Anchorage Daily News, Dec. 19, 2005]

                  Vaughan is a Great Man, Good Friend

                         (By Carol A. Phillips)

       On a February day in 1964, I hurried down to the main 
     street of my little town where the annual sled dog race was 
     about to start. Excited about this sporing event that had 
     always intrigued me, I lingered near the starting line as the 
     racers made last-minute preparations and the dogs leaped and 
     yelped their impatience to hit the trail.
       Suddenly I head a voice in an accent that was music to my 
     ears--a Bostonian here in Interior Alaska. Having emigrated 
     recently from Maine, I was compelled to trace the source of 
     that unmistakable accent. That was the day I met Col. Norman 
     Vaughan, then a young 58, who was working as a handler for a 
     New Hampshire racer. That meeting was the beginning of a 
     beautiful friendship.
       The achievements of Vaughan's extraordinary career are 
     familiar to his legion of friends. He returned in the mid-
     1970s to make his home here and became such a legend in his 
     own time that it's hard to realize he has not always been an 
     Alaskan.
       His adventures and accomplishments are diverse. He played 
     an essential role as dog handler on the 1927 Byrd Antarctic 
     expedition; served with distinction in the military; 
     airlifted supplies to Dr. Wilfred Grenfell's Labrador 
     mission; coordinated the rescue of 25 airmen stranded on the 
     Greenland icecap; retrieved the top-secret Norden bombsight 
     so critical-to the United States during World War II; ran in 
     several Iditarod races; spearheaded the effort to resurrect 
     World War II P-38s interred in Greenland's ice; drove a team 
     of huskies in President Reagan's inaugural parade in 
     Washington, D.C.; gave Pope John Paul II a lesson in dog 
     mushing during the pontiff's 1981 visit to Anchorage; 
     initiated the annual re-enactment of the 1925 Nenana-to-Nome 
     serum run; wrote a couple of books; and ascended 10,302-foot 
     Mount Vaughan, named for him by Adm. Richard Byrd.
       Even more memorable to me are some personal experiences 
     involving Vaughan. When my family was vacationing on a Maine 
     island in 1966, Norman drove up from his Massachusetts home 
     to visit us, enthralling my children with a fascinating 
     repertoire of stories and a supply of his famous homemade 
     root beer. When he first lived in Anchorage he walked from 
     his tiny downtown apartment to and from his night-shift 
     janitorial job at the university, with never a complaint.
       Through his friendship with the Dr. Schultz band, I came to 
     know those talented musicians who brightened the Anchorage 
     scene in the late 1970s. When Joe Redington Sr. sold one-
     square-foot parcels of his Knik land to raise money for the 
     creation of the now world-famous Iditarod race, Norman 
     presented each of my four children with a landowner's deed, 
     prompting my youngest to observe that if they pooled the 
     deeds, ``we could build a very small but very tall house.''
       Recently, one of my young grandsons, having seen Norman in 
     a TV ad, was awestruck to learn that I knew Norman 
     personally. He was further awed when I took him to visit the 
     Vaughan home, where Norman talked with him not about his own 
     accomplishments but about the child's interests, experiences 
     and ambitions, encouraging him to pursue his special dreams.
       Today, Col. Vaughan attains another remarkable goal--his 
     100th birthday. During that century he has enjoyed more 
     spectacular adventures and significant achievements than the 
     average person can imagine or aspire to. He had hoped to 
     spend his 100th birthday atop his eponymous mountain in 
     Antarctica, a lofty goal which could not be realized. It is 
     said that when he was advised that the trip was not going to 
     happen, his typically positive response was, ``Oh well, just 
     not this year.''
       It is a privilege to call this great, good man my friend. 
     Happy birthday, Norman!

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