The Nenana Ice Classic tripod moved and tripped the clock in the annual Tanana River ice out guessing game at 12:56 PM Alaska Standard Time Monday, April 27. Ice classic manager Cherrie Forness says
she and her staff have a lot of work to do to determine this year’s jackpot winner or winners. Forness says coronavirus pandemic-forced store closures reduced the number of tickets sold this year, but social distancing requirements mean about half of the normal crew of one hundred workers will be processing tickets.
"We are running a skeleton crew, so only about half of the people, if that, in the Civic Center, working. But we are able to keep people at a minimum of six feet apart by doing it this way.”
Although the overall number of tickets is down this year, organizers allowed mail in guesses due to pandemic restrictions that closed down many of the stores where tickets are normally sold, and Forness says dealing with the mail in guesses is time-consuming.
"We got lots and lots and lots of guesses in the mail. We're still processing those guesses, just getting them on tickets and such. I'm figuring that it's not going to take as much time as it normally does, but I know it's gonna take us at least 4 weeks.”
Forness says the work of logging in tickets will likely begin Thursday, using a system that relies heavily on manual labor.
"It goes through like four or five different processes; to get everything sorted, then the tickets put in numerical order, then goes to the people doing the data entry, then to the people who check all the guesses. It's quite a process that we go through, and I know a lot of people don't understand that. If it were digital, it wouldn't take as much time, but it would put a lot pf people out of work.”
Forness emphasizes that the Ice Classic is a community operation, which also donates money to numerous area charities.
