Bringing the glory home …

By claiming his fourth Iditarod victory Tuesday morning, Big Lake's Martin Buser entered a selective club of four-time champions, one that includes only Susan Butcher, Rick Swenson, Doug Swingley and now Buser.

With the American flag flying proudly above his sled, Buser pulled into Nome in record time, breaking the previous record and becoming the first musher in history to break the nine-day barrier.

Buser's race should be a lesson to us all, for several reasons.

After a 24th-place finish last year, there were some doubters. Instead of hearing them, Buser went back to the drawing board and started a different way of training.

Then the Iditarod began and Swingley, the three-time defending champ, announced he was retiring from competitive racing and taking what he described as a "victory lap." Instantly, it was all Swingley, all the time. As every angle of the story was recounted for three days, it was Buser who was quietly making his way to the front of the pack and building a lead, while the attention and pressure was off.

Buser pushed through to Cripple, the halfway point, while others rested miles behind him. Buser had a plan, and everything was going according to it. It became apparent it was his race to lose, and a three-time champ doesn't lose too many times.

While Swingley may have had a slow 1,000-mile victory lap, Buser had a fast 500-mile victory lap himself -- a 500-mile victory lap from Cripple that included a new race record. Buser didn't let the attention on Swingley deter him -- he used it to his advantage.

As if the fourth championships didn't mean a lot by itself, Buser made it an even more important moment in his life by becoming a U.S. citizen the next day. After Sept. 11, Buser -- who has been an Alaskan since 1979 but retained his Swiss citizenship -- knew that he wanted to become a U.S. citizen, and took the steps to making that dream of his come true.

Buser is an Iditarod champion, yes, but he is also a great champion of the community. His strong sense of family should be held high, and his commitment to organizations and groups within the community is second to none. There are a lot of people who live in the Valley, but aren't really part of the "community." Buser is not one of them.

Every Iditarod competitor is a champion in their own right, just for braving the trail, conditions and wild Alaska. As a four-time champ and now the record-holder for the Iditarod, Buser stands alone at the top of the list of champions.