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Sun shines on gathering at Park Strip

FESTIVE AFFAIR: Free food, lots of talk and a chance to meet Palin.

By JULIA O'MALLEY
Anchorage Daily News

Published: July 20th, 2008
Last Modified: July 20th, 2008 at 01:00 AM

Hundreds turned out Saturday for the annual Governor's Picnic, where Sarah Palin helped serve free burgers and hot dogs to a line of constituents that snaked down the Delaney Park Strip.

Just after noon, the sun made a rare appearance, and picnic-goers shed sweaters to soak it in as a band played cover songs. Conversation at the picnic tables meandered from Palin's firing of public safety commissioner Walt Monegan, to the quality of the salmon burgers (good, everyone agreed).

Anne Gauthier and her husband Ray polished off their burgers at a table near the stage. They'd been going to the governor's picnics for years.

"We didn't very much appreciate Murkowski but we came. I figured we'd get something from him," she said.

On the recent Palin scandal her end of the table agreed there were more questions left to be answered. "I'd like to hear the whole story, I'm not going to judge," she said.

At a neighboring table, Tracy Dockery ate with her two young daughters, Jordan and Jasmin. She didn't vote in the governor's election, but she thought Palin was doing a good job. Jordan had been thrilled to meet her.

"I'm not really political," she said between bites. "I'm just an anything free kind of person."

Find Julia O'Malley online at adn.com/contact/jomalley or call 257-4591.