It's not often that you see the head of a Federal agency charging through the Alaskan winter in a dogsled. For that matter, it's not often that you see the Director of the Census Bureau out counting people. Dr. Kenneth Prewitt, Director of the U. S. Census Bureau, intrepidly journeyed to the Alaskan village of Unalakleet to count the first person for the 2000 Decennial Census.

On February 23, 2000, I had the opportunity to talk to Dr. Prewitt about his experience in Alaska and some of the innovations in the first census of the new Millenium: Census 2000.

I understand you recently traveled to Alaska to kick off Census 2000. Tell me a bit about your trip.

By definition, the census always starts some place, and somebody's always the first person counted. But, we've never paid any attention to it. This time, we recognized it could be a public event, so I decided, "Good. I'll go counting."

It actually turned out for me to be a quite moving event. I counted the first person, an elderly gentleman who had lived with his wife in the same building for more than 80 years. When you realize you have counted the very first person, not just in this census, but in this century and this millennium, it is a moment that can bring a catch to your throat. Of course, I have to be especially careful about revealing identity and information. On the other hand, he himself was very proud of this and was happy to be interviewed, have his picture taken, and so forth.