Lives

Vail racing pioneer

Bryon Brown
Passing Date: September 13, 2017

Byron Brown, a mainstay of Vail’s ski racing community, died September 13 at age 86. A Missouri native, Brown was a high school football player and diver and attended Colorado A&M (now CSU) in Fort Collins. After a hitch in the Air Force he worked in Denver and joined the National Ski...

US. intercollegiate ski champion

Jack Valentine
Passing Date: September 6, 2017

John H. “Jack” Valentine, 93, a four-way intercollegiate ski champion and long-time member of Canada’s Redbirds Ski Club and New Hampshire’s Hochgebirge Ski Club, died September 6, 2017. Born in North Chelmsford, Massachusetts in 1924, Valentine attended Vermont Academy, where he became an...

U.S. Ski Team alpine racer

Tori Pillinger Robinson
Passing Date: August 26, 2017

Tori Pillinger Robinson, 51, a former U.S. Ski Team alpine racer, died August 26 after a courageous battle with breast cancer. Born December 18, 1966, Tori grew up in Park City, Utah, a community that recognized her talent and supported her pursuit of the sport to its highest level. As a member...

Sales rep, entrepreneur

Clay Freeman
Passing Date: August 16, 2017

Clayton Freeman, who represented Head and Salomon across the Western United States, and then held executive positions at Couloir, Roffe and other leading brands, died August 16 after a three-year battle with pulmonary fibrosis. He was 82. Clay grew up in Weston, Massachusetts, and learned to sail...

World Cup photographer

Armando Trovati
Passing Date: August 6, 2017

Veteran World Cup photographer Armando Trovati died on August 6, 2017 in Milan, Italy. He was 73. Born on February 13, 1944, Trovati started working with the AP as a teenager, beginning as a darkroom assistant and eventually shooting news and sports. He started covering the World Cup during the...

Skiing cartoonist

Bob Cram
Passing Date: July 29, 2017

Bob Cram, skiing cartoonist Perhaps it was said best in the Seattle Times: “Northwest ski pioneer, commercial artist, television personality and loyal Seattleite.”  That was Bob Cram, born Nov. 25, 1925, and passing away unexpectedly in his sleep July 29, 2017. The urge to draw came early.  Age 8...

Bob Parker, 10th Mountain vet, Vail pioneer

Bob Parker
Passing Date: June 29, 2017

Robert Ward Parker, a veteran of the10th Mountain Division who returned to Colorado to become an integral figure in the post-World War II ski industry, died June 29 in Grand Junction, Colo. He was 94. Much of his life was involved with skiing, from his childhood in New York and Wisconsin to...

Tom Corcoran passes: Olympian, Waterville Valley founder

Tom Corcoran
Passing Date: June 27, 2017

Tom Corcoran, who made his Waterville Valley resort in New Hampshire fertile ground in the 1970s for the future of World Cup alpine racing in America, freestyle competition, and Nastar, died June 27 in Charleston, SC, at age 85. The cause of death was cancer, complicated by pneumonia. Corcoran’s...

John Bower, Holmenkollen champ, US Nordic coach

John Bower
Passing Date: June 6, 2017

USST release (June 8, 2017) – Olympic skier John Bower, the first American to win the prestigious nordic combined King's Cup, as well as a formative coach and leader of the U.S. Nordic Ski Team, passed away June 6 in Park City. Bower, who was 76, played a pivotal role in the development of the Utah...

Hal Blittersdorf, ski resort illustrator

Harold Blittersdorf
Passing Date: June 1, 2017

Harold Edwin Blittersdorf, whose watercolor paintings of ski resorts graced the pages of SKI Magazine and of many resort brochures, passed away on June 1, 2017, at age 94. Born in Hammonton, New Jersey, he graduated from Avon-Grove High School in West Grove, Pennsylvania in 1940. He won an art...