FAIRBANKS — More than three decades ago when mammograms weren’t available locally, Nancy Murkowski and a group of Fairbanks women decided it was time mammograms became accessible to women in the Interior.

Through their vision, fundraising efforts and dedication, the Breast Cancer Detection Center became a reality.

Today the Murkowski family is still involved in supporting the center with an annual donation.

On Wednesday, for the 16th year in succession, former U.S. senator and governor Frank Murkowski handed a large check in Nancy’s behalf to the BCDC.

While living in Washington, D.C., in the 1990s, Nancy organized the Waterfall Committee, an annual August fishing fundraiser at the isolated Waterfall Resort on Prince of Wales Island in Southeast. Members of Congress, lobbyists, corporate CEOs and others have been returning every year since.

Each year proceeds from the event have provided the basis for BCDC’s operation.

This year was no exception, and BCDC board members gratefully accepted a check for $200,000.

The annual donation has never been less than $200,000 during the past 16 years, Murkowski said, totaling more than $4 million to date.

Lana Assyd, BCDC board chairwoman, said the annual stipend has allowed the center to purchase its building.

“It has sustained us for 17 years and allowed us to move our mission ahead.”

BCDC Executive Director Odette Butler added, “It affects everything we do.”

BCDC was founded in 1976 and continues in its permanent home at 1905 Cowles St., pursuing its mission of providing cancer detection and educational programs both locally and throughout Alaska with mobile mammography units.

The center will have the latest state of the art digital mammography unit available in January. The unit features a tungsten tube, Butler said, and produces the lowest radiation dosage of any unit to date.

Accompanying her father Wednesday was Eileen Van Whye who serves as executive director of the Waterfowl Committee and has 47 reservations in place for next year’s fishing expedition, which also includes an auction and whale and bird watching, she said.

It doesn’t take much to persuade people to join and fill the 88 reservations, Murkowski said. “We tell them, ‘Come to Alaska and support a good cause.’”

Mammograms are available by appointment, free of charge, according to ability to pay or use of health insurance. Call BCDC at 479-3909.

Mary Beth Smetzer can be reached at 459-7546.