Bud Klein
Kirkwood,Calif.lost two founders this summer.
Bud Klein, 83, died May 5 inStockton, Calif. Klein was a football and baseball star at University of the Pacific and Stanford. In 1950, because his father had had a heart attack, Klein declined a minor-league berth with a Boston Red Sox farm team and joined the family business, a brokerage for farm products inStockton. Over the years, in partnership with his brother and then with his sons, Klein quietly created a financial empire based largely on beans and grapes. The family eventually controlled a dozen wineries. The family endowed baseball fields at both University of the Pacific and Stanford.
Beginning in 1967, Klein worked with the Forest Service (and negotiated with environmental groups) to engineer the opening of Kirkwood Ski Resort in 1972.
Dick Reuter
Dick Reuter, Kirkwood’s original mountain manager, died July 4, at Kirkwood, at age 88. A World War II veteran, Reuter worked with Monty Atwater on avalanche control at Squaw Valley in the years leading up to the 1960 Olympics. He became Squaw’s mountain manager in the late ‘60s, then moved his family toKirkwoodwhere he supervised the cutting of trails and construction of lifts until retirement in 1991. Chair 11, “The Reut,” is named for Reuter.
Seth Masia
Seth Masia is the online editor for the International Skiing History Association. He began skiing at Chamonix in the summer of 1968 and joined the staff of SKI Magazine in 1974. He now teaches skiing at Vail (see Ski Younger Now). In real life he is editor of SOLAR TODAY magazine.
