Lives

Two-time Olympic jumper and U.S. Hall of Famer

Gene Kotlarek
Passing Date: November 9, 2017

Two-time Olympic ski jumper and U.S. Hall of Famer Eugene “Gene” Kotlarek died November 9, 2017, in his hometown of Colorado Springs, Colorado. Kotlarek, who was a jumping legend in the 1960s, was 77. Born in 1940, Kotlarek grew up in Duluth, Minnesota, where he began skiing at the age of five...

10th Mountain vet, legendary climber

Fred Beckey
Passing Date: October 30, 2017

Friedrich Wolfgang Beckey, the 10th Mountain Division veteran who, over a 70-year climbing career put up more first ascents than any other North American, died October 30 in Seattle. He was 94 years old. Beckey was born in Düsseldorf, Germany and the family moved to Seattle in 1925. With his...

Killington’s original mountain man

Royal Biathrow
Passing Date: October 25, 2017

Royal Biathrow, Killington Resort’s first employee, died October 25 at age 86. Born and raised in Bridgewater, Vermont, Royal became a logger during high school and served in the Korean War. He married Norma Towne in 1954 and went to work for her father’s construction business, gaining the...

Collegiate four-way racer and ski-manufacturer sales rep

Jim Bombard
Passing Date: October 20, 2017

Collegiate ski racer and sales rep James W. Bombard, 77, died on October 20, 2017, in Fitchfield, Massachusetts of dementia and Alzheimer’s disease. Bombard grew up in Saranac Lake in the Adirondack Mountains of New York. He earned his undergraduate degree from Paul Smith’s College in upstate New...

1956 Winter Olympian

Roy Sherwood
Passing Date: October 19, 2017

Roy Richard Sherwood passed away peacefully on October 19, 2017, at the age of 85. Sherwood was a lifelong resident of Salisbury, Connecticut, a town with a ski-jumping tradition dating back to the arrival of a group of Norwegians around 1920. Sherwood won the National Ski Jumping Championship in...

Aspen Ski Company and Wilderness Society executive

Bill Turnage
Passing Date: October 15, 2017

William Turnage, who served briefly around 1989 as a vice-president of the Aspen Skiing Company, and earlier served as executive director of the Wilderness Society and business manager for photographer Ansel Adams, died October 15, 2017, www.skiinghistory.org at his home in Mill Valley, Calif. He...

Vail and Lange pioneer

Morrie Shepard
Passing Date: October 12, 2017

Morris "Morrie" Shepard, Vail’s first ski school director and employee number two at the Lange Ski Boot Company, died Oct. 12 at age 92. Shepard grew up in Sharon, Massachusetts, where his childhood friend and ski buddy was Pete Seibert, founder of Vail. Graduating high school in 1943, Shepard...

Mountaineer, filmmaker, ski instructor

Norman Dyhrenfurth
Passing Date: September 24, 2017

Norman G. Dyhrenfurth, the climber and filmmaker who in 1963 led the first American expedition to reach the summit of Mount Everest, died on September 24 in Salzburg, Austria. He was 99. Norman Dyhrenfurth was born in Breslau, Germany, the son of Himalayan explorers Günter and Hettie Dyhrenfurth. ...

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...