Dirk Tordoff wins top university foundation award
Dirk Tordoff has done an outstanding job preserving rare film footage about Alaska and making it available to the public for the past 17 years.
So it's great to report that he is the 2010 recipient of the University of Alaska Foundation Edith R. Bullock Prize for Excellence.
Tordoff is the founder and the tireless proponent of the Alaska Film Archives at UAF, which is in the Rasmuson Library.
Mike Felix, the chairman of the foundation board of trustees, said Tordoff is a "great ambassador for the University of Alaska and we are very fortunate to have him on staff."
The Bullock award is the highest honor given by the UA Foundation. It includes a $20,000 prize, funded by earnings of private donations invested by the foundation.
Tordoff has done much to educate Alaskans and people all over the world about the history of our state.
For many years, most documentaries about Alaska history have included footage that Tordoff has found or discovered. His work with the public has won many friends for the University of Alaska and helped establish one of the leading Alaska film collections.
Here is an example of the kind of material he had collected and made available to people who want to learn more about our past. This is a short film about the statehood celebration in Fairbanks on June 30, 1958, after the U.S. Senate approved Alaska's admission.
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