Lives

Max Dercum, Colorado A-Basin and Keystone co-founder

Max Dercum
Passing Date: September 30, 2011

BY CADDIE NATH SUMMIT DAILY NEWS, Oct 1 – Co-founder of two of Summit County’s four ski resorts and local legend Max Dercum died Friday, Sept. 30, 2011 just days shy of his 99th birthday. Dercum passed away at a retirement home in Evergreen, where he lived, Jefferson County coroners confirmed. It...

Louis Cochand, Canadian Racer and resort owner

Louis Cochand
Passing Date: July 17, 2011

Louis Emile Cochand died on July 17, 2011 at the age of 94. A leader and top competitor in the second generation of organized Canadian skiing, Cochand was born into the most famous family of racing and resort-building in Quebec’s Laurentians. Louis was the son of Swiss ski instructor Emile...

Bonnie Prudden, Fitness guru and early female patroller

Bonnie Prudden
Passing Date: July 11, 2011

Bonnie Prudden, the fitness pioneer who influenced physical education for millions of American kids, passed away at her home in Tucson on December 11, 2011. She was 97. “You can’t turn back the clock, but you can wind it up again,” she told her students and patients, and that is how she lived her...

Marnie Jump, Colorado A- Basin Co-Founder

Marnie Jump
Passing Date: June 23, 2011

Arapahoe Basin Ski Area’s 2011 season opener marked the first time in 64 years that Marjorie Brown “Marnie” Jump wasn’t around to witness the festivities. Jump, of Denver, passed away in June. Jump came to A-Basin after serving four years in the Navy during World War II. Initially she found herself...

Jack Fisher, founder of Catamount and Jiminy Peak ski areas

Jack Fisher
Passing Date: June 14, 2011

John Falconer Fisher III – Jack Fisher – died June 14, 2011 in Barre,Vt., at 97. In 1939, Fisher took advantage of snow trains hauling skiers from New York City to nearby Hillsdale, N.Y., to open a couple of rope tows on land he bought 2.5 miles east, on the Massachusetts state line, naming the...

John Litchfield

John Litchfield
Passing Date: June 10, 2011

10th Mountain veteran, Aspen pioneer John Litchfield, a 10th Mountain Division veteran who helped build Aspen into a premier resort, died June 10, 2011 at age 93. Born in Lisbon Falls, Maine, and raised in Auburn, Litchfield skied from early childhood. He became a successful four-way skier,...

Pascal Heuga

Pascal “Pete” Heuga
Passing Date: April 17, 2011

Pete Heuga, father of Jimmie Heuga and a fixture at Squaw Valley from its opening day until his retirement in 1985, died on April 17, 2011. He was 102. Pascal Heuga was born to an impoverished single mother on April 15, 1909, in St.-Jean-Pied-le-Port, on the French side of the Basque Pyrennées....

Ralph Walton, Crested Butte

Ralph Walton
Passing Date: April 17, 2011

Ralph Outlaw Walton, Jr., died April 17, 2011 in LaGrange, Ga. After earning a degree in electrical engineering at Auburn Universityin 1951, Walton served in the U.S. Army Signal Corps and then did classified work in nuclear weapons. He then held management positions at Westinghouse Electric for...

Richard Spademan, binding inventor

Richard G. Spademan
Passing Date: December 9, 2010

Richard Spademan was a true believer, a man who found a better way and shared it with the world. Born in 1933 in Detroit, he skied as a teenager at Boyne and attended college and medical school at the University of Michigan. As an intern, he designed and patented a successful vascular catheter (it’...

Rigo Thurmer, architect, writer, ISHA benefactor

Rigo Thurmer
Passing Date: November 8, 2010

Rigo Thurmer, lifelong skier, influential architect and ISHA benefactor, died Nov. 8, 2010 after a long illness. He was 80. Rigomar Thurmer was born in 1930 and raised in Bad Reichenhall, a picturesque town dating to Roman times. The town sits just ten miles and a couple of valleys southwest of...