Congratulations to our $500 Readership Survey Winner

Florida winner loves Alaska magazine

Bonita Dotter of Fort Pierce, Fla., didn’t really believe she won the $500 random drawing for filling out the Alaska magazine readership survey. In fact, she didn’t even respond to the editor’s original email to her describing her winnings because she thought it was a scam.

But when the second one came, she looked online and discovered the email and phone number did match that of Debbie Cutler, editor. Then she was ecstatic.

“Thank God,” she said in mid-November. “I was so amazed and happy that I won and it is an appropriate time of year with the holidays coming up to get this financial boost.” She said she wasn’t aware she could subscribe to the magazine online, and was pleased with the website. She learned she could manage her account after a renewal form came in the mail with the magazine’s web address: www.alaskamagazine.com. “I saw the readership survey online while renewing,” she said. “I’ve been an Alaska magazine subscriber since I left the state in 1996.”

She still has a daughter, son-in-law and granddaughter in Alaska. The family owns Yukon Services in Anchorage. While she doesn’t plan for a visit to Alaska soon, she will keep reading Alaska magazine.

“I just enjoy your magazine very much,” Dotter said. “I’ve received other magazines from other states and none of them are as well done as yours is, with information I like to read about—not a lot of bad.

“And the stories you put out are of interest to people. You’re trying to get people to visit your state. Even brochures from (tourism organizations in Alaska) aren’t as near as enticing as your magazine is. While in Alaska, I pretty much hung around Anchorage, Fairbanks and Delta Junction,” she said. “I could have seen a lot more sites that were interesting to me, like those in Alaska magazine.”

Congratulations to our $250 Winner of the “We Want You Back Former Readership Survey” Contest

Bill Bremmer of Fairview, Pa., the $250 winner of the “2012 We Want You Back! Former Readership Survey” contest, didn’t mean to let his subscription lapse. He was just traveling all over the country while working in the oil and gas business, and forgot to renew.

“I’ve been a reader since the magazine first came available,” he said, adding that he thought the photography in each issue was fantastic.

“I like the spirit, the spirit of Alaska magazine,” he said. “I love just about everything about Alaska magazine. It’s well-written, very interesting. I grab it and read it cover to cover. I start with the obituaries and go backward. Something must be in the water up there because people live to such old ages.”

He said the first thing he is going to do with his winnings is resubscribe to the magazine. The rest is going in a fund for his first visit to the state.

“I’m going to get up there come hell or high water,” he said. “It’s one of the items on my bucket list.”

Bremmer said he loves the people, the outdoors, the water and mountains of the Great Land. He’s also interested in Alaska’s promising oil and gas industry. “Know anywhere I can get a job up there?” he asked.

“Maybe next spring I’ll snoop around and see what’s going on there. I want to see if the people you have in your magazine actually exist,” he teased. “I’ve wanted to come to Alaska since I was a teenager, before Alaska was a state.”

As for the phone call describing how to claim the winnings: