Longtime resident Salmon migrates out of the Mat-Su

PALMER — If the modern Mat Su Borough had its own Mount Rushmore, Darcie Salmon might very well be on it. Rather than chipped into stone, his visage might be revealed by the resolve to persevere through great anguish. The longtime real estate broker, former mayor and assemblyman wrapped up work at his Nelson Street office before departing permanently to Michigan last week. The morning after a retirement banquet of nearly 200 well-wishers found him seated at his desk, signing checks and serenading anyone in earshot with classic rock lyrics.

To enter his realm is a bit transcendental, yet entirely practical. He laughs that friends have credited him for selling them homes without ever seeing the house himself. This talent is both pragmatic and intuitive — for Salmon, the daily trek from the parking lot into his office is grueling. He doesn’t so much walk with a cane as barrel forward, propelled by will and momentum, cane clicking underneath him at syncopated beats. Using a wheelchair for extended public events, he has earned a living from his desk by necessity after a car wreck which nearly took his life.

Since 1997 he has been recovering from a major motor vehicle accident. He recalls the upside of the harrowing night on Knik Goose Bay Road, rather than dwell on details like being hit by an uninsured, unlicensed, wildly intoxicated driver previously convicted of multiple DUI charges, or joints being pierced by his car’s gas pedal, nearly severing his right foot at the ankle. His arm was badly broken and his legs splintered into 300 pieces. Salmon describes “the blessing” of this accident as avoiding head trauma, thereby allowing him to continue working. He campaigned for mayor from a wheelchair and found the challenge to be a match for his active mind and perennial ambition to improve the growing borough.

An Air Force veteran and graduate of Hillsdale College, he earned honors as a psychology major and went to work in the mental health field. Coming to Alaska in 1974 at the invitation of an uncle either proved fortuitous, or Salmon’s professional grit made it so. With a military background in petroleum, he figured opportunities in Alaska’s oilfields could produce a living beyond the modest Michigan wages he was toiling for. His uncle, himself a realtor, soon suggested Salmon become licensed to sell real estate.

Throughout these years he started a family, enduring the loss of his young wife Theresa, who was killed in a car accident in 1988. He then met and married Bettie, with whom he raised his three young children. Now grown, Donald has served six years on a Naval submarine and is stationed in Connecticut, while Abraham is a family man and an accomplished athlete who coaches wrestling and teaches at Wasilla’s Redington High. Daughter Amanda has been selling real estate for fourteen years and is in her second year as an associate broker.

Held at Evangelo’s, Salmon’s farewell party attendees included the Mat Su Valley delegation of Alaska’s legislators, dozens of real estate colleagues, and what felt to Salmon like an endless parade of friends. His career was commemorated by a proclamation and presentation of state flag which flew over the state capitol in Juneau, as well as an honorary lifetime membership in the Valley Board of Realtors. Mayor Bert Cottle offered Wasilla-themed keepsakes to a visibly humbled Salmon.

“I didn’t expect any of that,” he said. “The tears were pouring.”

Following the five-hour soiree, Evangelo Lambernakis spoke as his staff quietly polished the darkened ballroom in the background,

“Darcie has done a lot. Twenty years my real estate agent, always my friend.”

After 31 years in real estate, Salmon estimates he’s personally sold over a thousand homes, with licensees under his direction moving another 3,000 to 4,000 homes. He expanded into commercial real estate after many years of familiarizing himself with neighborhoods, developers, topography, transactions and the local pulse. Of housing recessions over the past three decades, which he weathered and ultimately thrived through, he emphasized that lender acquisition of homes was never treated lightly by him.

“I was ever aware that each house I sold through foreclosure, someone had lost,” he said.

He described the skills that served him well as a mental health counselor as translating handily to sales: truly getting to know people, learning their needs, responding with options and assisting them through the crisis points in order to reach their goals. Over the years, he has witnessed approaches to real estate evolve in many ways through technology and trends, but sees the essence of the industry as unchanged.

“The only way to get paid in this business is to meet people, find houses, put them together,” he said.

Mentoring new salesmen and women had one one aim: lifting individuals into prosperity, thereby increasing opportunities all around them. Salmon’s physical presence is a model of this theory in practice, with his office’s long-standing open-door policy creating flurries of activity around him. The lessons at his heel aren’t limited to civics or sales, but often branch seamlessly into history, metaphysics, philosophy and the arts.

Reflecting on his intersecting spheres of influence in private enterprise and public service, Salmon mused over friendship and the accolades he values most. When complimented by business and political fellows for his intelligence and wisdom, he answers, “Hey, it’s better than bein’ pretty.”

Salmon said his chief regret was the failure to sell the concept of the Knik Arm Bridge. He outlined a vision, which he still endorses, in which the state’s industrial base shifts to Port Mackenzie, allowing Anchorage to build its shoreline with attractive retail-level commerce such as shops and restaurants.

“(The Municipality of) Anchorage just never drank the Kool-Aid,” he said. “It’s a threefold solution involving the port at Point Mackenzie (which Salmon was crucial in the completion of), the rail expansion and the Knik Arm Bridge. It was never solely the bridge or solely the port.”

Predictably, he remains optimistic about its prospects and notes the irony of seeking retirement away from much of the bustling infrastructure he rallied for in Alaska over these decades: his boyhood home of Waldron, Michigan has just 550 residents and is formally classified as a village.

As the last of the memorabilia and boxes were packed out the door by friend Monty Hess, Salmon could be overhead reinforcing the value of private industry compared to federal efforts like the post office. A to Z Realty office manager Rosemary Burnett smiled through tears: “He must have been a helluva man when he had his legs, because he’s still a helluva man.”

Salmon insists he’s headed for a quiet year alongside Bettie, his wife of 25 years, and their extended families — but plans to spend his birthday next month at a Pink Floyd tribute concert and says if his hometown proves too boring, he “may run for mayor”.

Tiffany Borges is a freelance writer from the Mat-Su Valley.