Talkeetna woman leaves legacy of caring

WILLOW — A woman killed Thursday in a train-car collision was a beloved Talkeetna fixture.

“I’m not sure I can come up with people that didn’t love her,” said Sue Deyoe, news director for radio station KTNA in Talkeetna. “I think that everybody really loved her.”

Alaska State Troopers say Emmila Denny’s car was on the railroad tracks when she was hit at Mile 69 Parks Highway.

According to a trooper press statement, at 6:05 p.m. troopers were called to the site of the accident at the railroad crossing on Willow Station Road. Denny was 66.

“What we know right now is that she had approached the train area and stopped, the mechanical arm came down and was on top of her vehicle. Witness accounts tell us at the last minute the vehicle lurched forward,” said trooper spokeswoman Megan Peters. “We have contacted the family and they tell us she had a new vehicle and she was learning how to use the clutch.”

What exactly happened inside the car just before the wreck, though, is yet to be determined, Peters said.

A phone listed under Denny’s name was not answered Friday.

Her friends and acquaintances said Denny was a well-known and well-liked Talkeetna resident who had lived a number of years in the community.

Deyoe said Denny would help out with radio fundraisers and events and had a regular Tuesday night show dubbed Granny’s Radio Recipes.

“She would intersperse big band music with easy recipes for old bachelors up the track,” Deyoe said.

The show, she said, was among the radio’s oldest — probably only one or two other programs she could think of were older. The station has been encouraging regular listeners and supporters of the show to call in and lend a hand putting together a tribute to Denny in her Tuesday night slot this week.

Denny was also involved with the Denali Arts Council, Deyoe said, and had a scholarship in her name for students pursuing education in the arts.

“The last few years we’d had a jazz workshop she really got interested in and was involved with and did a great do-wop,” Deyoe said.

She said Talkeetna was notably somber in the wake of the accident.

“People are pretty upset. She’s been here for years and years and years and her husband works at Talkeetna Elementary School and is just loved by all the kids who go there,” Deyoe said. “She’s got a lot of family here and extended family so a lot of people are really in pain right now.”

Tim Thompson, spokesman for the Alaska Railroad, said the train was southbound out of Fairbanks when the accident occurred.

“There was no derailment, there was some damage to the second locomotive,” he said. “At one point we weren’t sure if we were going to be able to move it but they were able to get it fixed in the field.”

He said none of the crew or the train’s 700 passengers were injured in the crash. The train was moved forward to White’s Crossing where the passengers were taken off, loaded into vans, and taken to Anchorage. The empty train was eventually started back up and sent on its way.

“The train was able to make it in under its own power very early this morning,” Thompson said Friday.

The Willow accident is the second fatal train collision this summer. A man and his dog were killed in Wasilla in July. The dog ran onto the track and Brett P. Miller, 42, Anchorage, was killed trying to retrieve the animal.

Contact Andrew Wellner at andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com or 352-2270.