Six Gain Berths in Intermountain Ski Hall of Fame
Sep 18, 2007
Connie Nelson, connie.nelson@olyparks.com
UTAH OLYMPIC PARK - Two competitors, two resort developers and two skiing entrepreneurs comprise the 2007 class which will be inducted into the Intermountain Ski Hall of Fame here Thursday, September 20th, 2007. The inductees are:
• Ted Johnson, the one-time California beach-comber who became the visionary-founder of world-class Snowbird Ski and Summer Resort in Utah’s Little Cottonwood Canyon;
• Paul McCollister, the late advertising executive who used his creative talents to conceive and develop the renowned Jackson Hole Ski Area at Teton Village, Wyoming;
• Woody Anderson, a Salt Lake City native who forged a ski career as a competitor, ski shop-owner, ski school director, ski school instructor/administrator, resort manager and who is current owner-president of Idaho’s Pomerelle Ski Resort;
• K Smith, the late founder of Utah’s storied Brighton Ski Area who started the ski school there that bore his name and who built the first ski lift in Sapporo, a prominent ski resort in Japan;
• Pete Karns, a native of Jackson Hole, WY, who was a dominant factor at every level of skiing competition, ranging from the region’s junior ranks to being a collegiate All-American to the U.S. Olympic Team as competitor and coach;
• Margo Walters-McDonald, Salt Lake City, who’s racing exploits found her name high on the race result sheets of events that included the storied Harriman, Roche and Snow Cups and the 1964 Olympic Winter Games.
Each honoree or representative will receive a glass plaque bearing a likeness of the honor recipient while a duplicate plaque will be enshrined at the Quinney Winter Sports Center where it will be on permanent display in the Will and Jean Pickett Intermountain Ski Hall of Fame, named in recognition of the late ski enthusiasts who lived in Salt Lake City.
The class of 2007 will bring to 29 the number inducted into the Hall of Fame since it was established in 2002.
According to Scott C. Ulbrich, President of the non-profit Alf Engen Ski Museum Foundation that oversees the Hall of Fame, some 170 (due to seating limitations) are expected to attend the Induction Ceremonies that include a reception, dinner and video presentation highlighting the careers of the inductees.
Ulbrich said Hall of Fame selections are made annually be knowledgeable ski historians from Utah, Idaho and Wyoming. The selection criteria focus is on outstanding achievements in the areas of skiing competition, skiing innovation, ski sport development and significant contributions to the overall promotion of skiing. Priority is given to individuals who have made contributions to the sport that have resulted in significant benefits to the Intermountain Area over a long period.
Nominees for the honor originate with the public and with the volunteer members of the Ski Archives board of advisors. Housed at the J. Willard Marriott Library at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City, the Ski Archives was founded in 1989 to locate, preserve, catalog and make available to the public the history of skiing in the region. Today it houses over 20,000 photographs, manuscript collections and oral histories, plus numerous other items, including the records of the Salt Lake Organizing Committee of the 2002 Olympic Winter Games (SLOC).
Inductees to the Intermountain Ski Hall of Fame to date are:
• 2002: Junior Bounous, Zane A. Doyle, Alf M. Engen, Sverre Engen, Karre ‘Corey’ Engen, Gretchen K. Fraser, W. Averell Harriman and S. Joseph ‘Joe’ Quinney.
• 2003: Stein Eriksen, Bill Briggs and Axel Andreason
• 2004: Pepi Stiegler, ‘Mayor’ George Watson, Suzy Harris Rytting, Bill Lash, Bill Spencer and Edward L. Scott
• 2005: Edgar B. Stern, Jr., Neil Rafferty, M. Earl Miller, Lou Lorenz, Keith Lange and James R. Gaddis.
• 2006: Devereaux ‘Dev’ Jennings, Calvin ‘Cal’ McPhie, Marvin A.’Marv’ Melville, Richard ‘Dick’ Movitz, Jack N. Reddish, Marthinius ‘Mark’ Strand.
The Hall of Fame plaque for each of the 2007 inductees reads as follows:
Class of 2007
Woody Anderson (1932 - )
Woody Anderson is a Renaissance Man of Skiing in the Intermountain Region. His heralded accomplishments cover the spectrum of skiing. Woody began teaching skiing in 1947 in Salt Lake City, Utah with the Deseret News Ski School. He joined the Brighton Ski School in 1948 and was its assistant director from 1954 to 1962. From 1956 to 1963 he owned and operated the Woodhaus Ski and Sports Shop at Brighton.
Woody competed for the Armed Forces while he was stationed in Germany with the U.S. Army from 1951-1953.
Woody became ski school director at the new Park City Resort in 1964 and was named its general manger in 1965, serving in both capacities until 1971 when he was appointed vice president-general manager. From 1963 to 1967 he owned and operated the Miner’s Find Ski & Sport Shop in Park City. He became owner-president of Pomerelle Ski Resort, Albion, Idaho, in 1973. From 1977 to 1984 Anderson was owner-president of Magic Mountain Ski Resort near Twin Falls, Idaho.
Woody was one of the founders of the Intermountain Ski Instructors Association, he served as its secretary, certification chairman, president and director. He was National Certification Chairman of the Professional Ski Instructors of America in 1968 and was designated a Lifetime Member for his contribution to organized skiing by the PSIA/PSIA-I in 1978. He was inducted into the PSIA-I Hall of Fame in 2004.
Ted Johnson (1926 - )
As the visionary and founder behind Snowbird Ski and Summer Resort, Ted Johnson forever altered the recreational landscape of Utah. The one-time beach enthusiast in his native California and later a do-it-all employee at Alta Ski Area, Ted in 1965 put his foresight and fortitude into a dream of establishing a resort with the purchase of the Blackjack mining claims, the catalyst to an 800-acre parcel abutting Wasatch National Forest lands in storied Little Cottonwood Canyon.
After persevering through five years of study and setbacks, heartbreak and breakthroughs, and orchestrating the construction of a canyon-long sewer line, Snowbird welcomed its first skiers in 1971. The resort’s environment-embracing sod-covered roofs, internationally-acclaimed ski runs, hotels and cuisine, and a skier/boarder/tourist conveyance system that includes a 120-passenger tram and a skier tunnel, stand as a legacy to the wily “Silver Fox,” an entrepreneur whose quest was not to be denied.
Pete Karns (1945 - )
Pete Karns carved an impressive legacy of accomplishment at every level of skiing competition – juniors, collegiate, Olympic, Masters and coaching. A native of Jackson Hole, Wyoming, Karns was a dominant competitor in slalom, downhill, cross-country and jumping in the region’s junior ranks starting in 1955. His triumphs in cross-country and Skimeister (4-way combined) events as a member of the University of Utah Ski Team between 1964 and 1967 earned him NCAA All-American honors in 1966. In 1967 he won the cross-country title in the 1967 Rocky Mountain Intercollegiate Ski Championships.
Pete placed first in the U.S. Biathlon National Championships in 1970 and 1972. In 1972 he was a member of the U.S. Olympic Biathlon Team that placed 6th in the Sapporo, Japan, Olympic Games, the highest ever by a U.S. team in that event up to that time. He was second in the 1980 U.S. Biathlon National Championships and second in the team relay in the 1985 World Masters Cross-country Championships.
Karns served as a member of the U.S. Olympic Committee from 1973 to 1976, the same years he coached the U.S. Biathlon Team. He coached the U.S. Olympic Biathlon Team in 1976 and was Chief of Timing for Biathlon during the 1980 Olympic Winter Games in Lake Placid, New York. During the 2002 Olympic Winter Games in Salt Lake City, Karns served as chief of forerunners for biathlon events.
Paul McCollister (1915 - 1999)
Following a successful career operating a California-based radio advertising company, Paul McCollister used his creative genius to envision, and ultimately build, the world-renowned Jackson Hole Ski Area in Northwestern Wyoming. In 1957, nearly 20 years after discovering the pristine beauty of the Grand Tetons, Paul moved his family from the rapidly growing California Bay Area to the remote and wild valley of Jackson Hole. Paul experienced all the wonderful opportunities the area had to offer, but his entrepreneurial spirit was about to be unleashed. In 1963 Paul McCollister launched the infant resort by forming the Jackson Hole Ski Corporation, obtaining a $1 million government-sponsored loan, and heeding the advice of ski mountain-savvy Willy Schaeffler, legendary coach of the touted Denver University Ski Team. Construction began in 1964.
When the Jackson Hole Ski Area opened in 1966, it offered three chairlifts and a 63 passenger aerial tramway, the iconic centerpiece of Paul’s dream. The tram whisked skiers to the summit of Rendezvous Mountain, boasting a vertical rise of 4,139 feet, the greatest in North America. From day one Jackson Hole has attracted the most talented and dedicated individuals. It is truly a “Skier’s” mountain. Rightfully proud, Paul said of his efforts: “There are not too many people who have created something from virtually nothing. This is my baby. It has turned out to be my life.” Paul McCollister retired from the resort in 1992 and died in 1999 at the age of 84.
K Smith (1916 - 2001)
The ski pioneering exploits of K Smith are various and numerous. But one is paramount: Brighton Ski Area in Utah’s Big Cottonwood Canyon. In 1936 the man with only an initial for a first name added alpine skiing to Brighton’s recreational offerings when he installed a T-bar tow to serve skiers. K began skiing in 1924. What followed was a lifetime of significant skiing-related accomplishments. They include being president of the Alpine Ski Club in 1940, a member of the storied 10th Mountain Division of World War II fame, and the battalion ski supervisor in the 86th Mountain Infantry Division.
While stationed in the military in Japan in 1945, K built that country’s first ski lift in Sapporo, which played host to the 1972 Olympic Winter Games. In 1946 Smith became operator of Brighton Ski Area and started its ski school, which bore his name. He was responsible for training numerous ski instructors and served on the board of directors of the Professional Ski Instructors of America-Intermountain.
In 1954 K started the Salt Lake County Ski School for school children and in 1956 he pioneered the Deseret News Free Ski School, the largest in the nation, both held in Brighton. He coached the Westminster Ski Team in 1970 and set many challenging race courses for local racers during the 50’s and 60’s. K retired in 1972 and was inducted into the PSIA-Intermountain Hall of Fame in 1989. He died July 21, 2001.
Margo Walters-McDonald (1942 - )
From 1957 to 1967 the name Margo Walters perennially appeared high on the result sheets that spanned the spectrum of ski racing: the Intermountain Championships, the Intermountain Junior and Senior National Championships, the Western Regional Championships, the storied Snow Cup, Roche Cup, and Harriman Cup events, the U.S. National Championships and the Olympic Winter Games.
The fiercely-competitive, yet diminutive, Margo first donned skis in 1951 in Bear Gulch, Idaho -- a fateful event that ultimately led to a first place finish in the Junior Nationals, a second place finish in the Senior Nationals, three Snow Cup victories (1960, 1961 and 1963), and a 21st place finish in the downhill in the 1964 Olympic Winter Games in Innsbruck, Austria, where she was a member of the U.S. Olympic Team.
A graduate of Salt Lake City’s Jordan High School, Margo served as executive director of the Intermountain Ski Association from 1967 to 1970.
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UTAH OLYMPIC PARK - Two competitors, two resort developers and two skiing entrepreneurs comprise the 2007 class which will be inducted into the Intermountain Ski Hall of Fame here Thursday, September 20th, 2007. The inductees are:
• Ted Johnson, the one-time California beach-comber who became the visionary-founder of world-class Snowbird Ski and Summer Resort in Utah’s Little Cottonwood Canyon;
• Paul McCollister, the late advertising executive who used his creative talents to conceive and develop the renowned Jackson Hole Ski Area at Teton Village, Wyoming;
• Woody Anderson, a Salt Lake City native who forged a ski career as a competitor, ski shop-owner, ski school director, ski school instructor/administrator, resort manager and who is current owner-president of Idaho’s Pomerelle Ski Resort;
• K Smith, the late founder of Utah’s storied Brighton Ski Area who started the ski school there that bore his name and who built the first ski lift in Sapporo, a prominent ski resort in Japan;
• Pete Karns, a native of Jackson Hole, WY, who was a dominant factor at every level of skiing competition, ranging from the region’s junior ranks to being a collegiate All-American to the U.S. Olympic Team as competitor and coach;
• Margo Walters-McDonald, Salt Lake City, who’s racing exploits found her name high on the race result sheets of events that included the storied Harriman, Roche and Snow Cups and the 1964 Olympic Winter Games.
Each honoree or representative will receive a glass plaque bearing a likeness of the honor recipient while a duplicate plaque will be enshrined at the Quinney Winter Sports Center where it will be on permanent display in the Will and Jean Pickett Intermountain Ski Hall of Fame, named in recognition of the late ski enthusiasts who lived in Salt Lake City.
The class of 2007 will bring to 29 the number inducted into the Hall of Fame since it was established in 2002.
According to Scott C. Ulbrich, President of the non-profit Alf Engen Ski Museum Foundation that oversees the Hall of Fame, some 170 (due to seating limitations) are expected to attend the Induction Ceremonies that include a reception, dinner and video presentation highlighting the careers of the inductees.
Ulbrich said Hall of Fame selections are made annually be knowledgeable ski historians from Utah, Idaho and Wyoming. The selection criteria focus is on outstanding achievements in the areas of skiing competition, skiing innovation, ski sport development and significant contributions to the overall promotion of skiing. Priority is given to individuals who have made contributions to the sport that have resulted in significant benefits to the Intermountain Area over a long period.
Nominees for the honor originate with the public and with the volunteer members of the Ski Archives board of advisors. Housed at the J. Willard Marriott Library at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City, the Ski Archives was founded in 1989 to locate, preserve, catalog and make available to the public the history of skiing in the region. Today it houses over 20,000 photographs, manuscript collections and oral histories, plus numerous other items, including the records of the Salt Lake Organizing Committee of the 2002 Olympic Winter Games (SLOC).
Inductees to the Intermountain Ski Hall of Fame to date are:
• 2002: Junior Bounous, Zane A. Doyle, Alf M. Engen, Sverre Engen, Karre ‘Corey’ Engen, Gretchen K. Fraser, W. Averell Harriman and S. Joseph ‘Joe’ Quinney.
• 2003: Stein Eriksen, Bill Briggs and Axel Andreason
• 2004: Pepi Stiegler, ‘Mayor’ George Watson, Suzy Harris Rytting, Bill Lash, Bill Spencer and Edward L. Scott
• 2005: Edgar B. Stern, Jr., Neil Rafferty, M. Earl Miller, Lou Lorenz, Keith Lange and James R. Gaddis.
• 2006: Devereaux ‘Dev’ Jennings, Calvin ‘Cal’ McPhie, Marvin A.’Marv’ Melville, Richard ‘Dick’ Movitz, Jack N. Reddish, Marthinius ‘Mark’ Strand.
The Hall of Fame plaque for each of the 2007 inductees reads as follows:
Class of 2007
Woody Anderson (1932 - )
Woody Anderson is a Renaissance Man of Skiing in the Intermountain Region. His heralded accomplishments cover the spectrum of skiing. Woody began teaching skiing in 1947 in Salt Lake City, Utah with the Deseret News Ski School. He joined the Brighton Ski School in 1948 and was its assistant director from 1954 to 1962. From 1956 to 1963 he owned and operated the Woodhaus Ski and Sports Shop at Brighton.
Woody competed for the Armed Forces while he was stationed in Germany with the U.S. Army from 1951-1953.
Woody became ski school director at the new Park City Resort in 1964 and was named its general manger in 1965, serving in both capacities until 1971 when he was appointed vice president-general manager. From 1963 to 1967 he owned and operated the Miner’s Find Ski & Sport Shop in Park City. He became owner-president of Pomerelle Ski Resort, Albion, Idaho, in 1973. From 1977 to 1984 Anderson was owner-president of Magic Mountain Ski Resort near Twin Falls, Idaho.
Woody was one of the founders of the Intermountain Ski Instructors Association, he served as its secretary, certification chairman, president and director. He was National Certification Chairman of the Professional Ski Instructors of America in 1968 and was designated a Lifetime Member for his contribution to organized skiing by the PSIA/PSIA-I in 1978. He was inducted into the PSIA-I Hall of Fame in 2004.
Ted Johnson (1926 - )
As the visionary and founder behind Snowbird Ski and Summer Resort, Ted Johnson forever altered the recreational landscape of Utah. The one-time beach enthusiast in his native California and later a do-it-all employee at Alta Ski Area, Ted in 1965 put his foresight and fortitude into a dream of establishing a resort with the purchase of the Blackjack mining claims, the catalyst to an 800-acre parcel abutting Wasatch National Forest lands in storied Little Cottonwood Canyon.
After persevering through five years of study and setbacks, heartbreak and breakthroughs, and orchestrating the construction of a canyon-long sewer line, Snowbird welcomed its first skiers in 1971. The resort’s environment-embracing sod-covered roofs, internationally-acclaimed ski runs, hotels and cuisine, and a skier/boarder/tourist conveyance system that includes a 120-passenger tram and a skier tunnel, stand as a legacy to the wily “Silver Fox,” an entrepreneur whose quest was not to be denied.
Pete Karns (1945 - )
Pete Karns carved an impressive legacy of accomplishment at every level of skiing competition – juniors, collegiate, Olympic, Masters and coaching. A native of Jackson Hole, Wyoming, Karns was a dominant competitor in slalom, downhill, cross-country and jumping in the region’s junior ranks starting in 1955. His triumphs in cross-country and Skimeister (4-way combined) events as a member of the University of Utah Ski Team between 1964 and 1967 earned him NCAA All-American honors in 1966. In 1967 he won the cross-country title in the 1967 Rocky Mountain Intercollegiate Ski Championships.
Pete placed first in the U.S. Biathlon National Championships in 1970 and 1972. In 1972 he was a member of the U.S. Olympic Biathlon Team that placed 6th in the Sapporo, Japan, Olympic Games, the highest ever by a U.S. team in that event up to that time. He was second in the 1980 U.S. Biathlon National Championships and second in the team relay in the 1985 World Masters Cross-country Championships.
Karns served as a member of the U.S. Olympic Committee from 1973 to 1976, the same years he coached the U.S. Biathlon Team. He coached the U.S. Olympic Biathlon Team in 1976 and was Chief of Timing for Biathlon during the 1980 Olympic Winter Games in Lake Placid, New York. During the 2002 Olympic Winter Games in Salt Lake City, Karns served as chief of forerunners for biathlon events.
Paul McCollister (1915 - 1999)
Following a successful career operating a California-based radio advertising company, Paul McCollister used his creative genius to envision, and ultimately build, the world-renowned Jackson Hole Ski Area in Northwestern Wyoming. In 1957, nearly 20 years after discovering the pristine beauty of the Grand Tetons, Paul moved his family from the rapidly growing California Bay Area to the remote and wild valley of Jackson Hole. Paul experienced all the wonderful opportunities the area had to offer, but his entrepreneurial spirit was about to be unleashed. In 1963 Paul McCollister launched the infant resort by forming the Jackson Hole Ski Corporation, obtaining a $1 million government-sponsored loan, and heeding the advice of ski mountain-savvy Willy Schaeffler, legendary coach of the touted Denver University Ski Team. Construction began in 1964.
When the Jackson Hole Ski Area opened in 1966, it offered three chairlifts and a 63 passenger aerial tramway, the iconic centerpiece of Paul’s dream. The tram whisked skiers to the summit of Rendezvous Mountain, boasting a vertical rise of 4,139 feet, the greatest in North America. From day one Jackson Hole has attracted the most talented and dedicated individuals. It is truly a “Skier’s” mountain. Rightfully proud, Paul said of his efforts: “There are not too many people who have created something from virtually nothing. This is my baby. It has turned out to be my life.” Paul McCollister retired from the resort in 1992 and died in 1999 at the age of 84.
K Smith (1916 - 2001)
The ski pioneering exploits of K Smith are various and numerous. But one is paramount: Brighton Ski Area in Utah’s Big Cottonwood Canyon. In 1936 the man with only an initial for a first name added alpine skiing to Brighton’s recreational offerings when he installed a T-bar tow to serve skiers. K began skiing in 1924. What followed was a lifetime of significant skiing-related accomplishments. They include being president of the Alpine Ski Club in 1940, a member of the storied 10th Mountain Division of World War II fame, and the battalion ski supervisor in the 86th Mountain Infantry Division.
While stationed in the military in Japan in 1945, K built that country’s first ski lift in Sapporo, which played host to the 1972 Olympic Winter Games. In 1946 Smith became operator of Brighton Ski Area and started its ski school, which bore his name. He was responsible for training numerous ski instructors and served on the board of directors of the Professional Ski Instructors of America-Intermountain.
In 1954 K started the Salt Lake County Ski School for school children and in 1956 he pioneered the Deseret News Free Ski School, the largest in the nation, both held in Brighton. He coached the Westminster Ski Team in 1970 and set many challenging race courses for local racers during the 50’s and 60’s. K retired in 1972 and was inducted into the PSIA-Intermountain Hall of Fame in 1989. He died July 21, 2001.
Margo Walters-McDonald (1942 - )
From 1957 to 1967 the name Margo Walters perennially appeared high on the result sheets that spanned the spectrum of ski racing: the Intermountain Championships, the Intermountain Junior and Senior National Championships, the Western Regional Championships, the storied Snow Cup, Roche Cup, and Harriman Cup events, the U.S. National Championships and the Olympic Winter Games.
The fiercely-competitive, yet diminutive, Margo first donned skis in 1951 in Bear Gulch, Idaho -- a fateful event that ultimately led to a first place finish in the Junior Nationals, a second place finish in the Senior Nationals, three Snow Cup victories (1960, 1961 and 1963), and a 21st place finish in the downhill in the 1964 Olympic Winter Games in Innsbruck, Austria, where she was a member of the U.S. Olympic Team.
A graduate of Salt Lake City’s Jordan High School, Margo served as executive director of the Intermountain Ski Association from 1967 to 1970.
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