June 19, 2003

Colorado Ski Hall of Fame inducts five

The Colorado Ski Hall of Fame announces the election of Kevin Delaney, Max Marolt, Frank Penney, Morrie Shepard, and Park Smalley to the Colorado Ski Hall of Fame. They will be honored at the 27th annual banquet to be held in October of 2003.

The five new honorees will join 144 other athletes, inspirational individuals, and ski-sport builders who have enriched the sport of skiing and snowboarding in Colorado. A wide diversity of backgrounds is represented on the 2003 roster with a snowboard pioneer; an Olympian, a ski jumping coach; a ski school director, and a freestyle champion. The legacy of these lifetime achievers will continue to inspire future generations.

For information on the Colorado Ski Hall of Fame or nominating procedures, please contact the museum at (970) 476-1876 or email info@skimuseum.net.

KEVIN DELANEY, a Boulder native, is a snowboard pioneer who led his family into the sport in 1980 and continued to improve and promote the fledgling sport until it gained the wide acceptance and popularity it enjoys today. In 1986 he moved to Telluride and started the area's first snowboarding instruction program. In 1988 he won the overall title at the U.S. National Snowboarding Championship held at Crested Butte. The following winter Kevin moved to Vail and began designing and manufacturing new asymmetrical snowboards that performed better in racing competition. These boards went on to win national and international titles for their riders. Kevin won the 1992 U.S. Professional Men's Super-G Championship and was the 1992 NASTAR national pacesetter for snowboarders. In 1993 he won the first International Snowboarding Federation (ISF) Two Year World Championship overall title. This event was held in Austria and included 250 athletes representing 15 countries. Today Kevin is a director of the Delaney Adult Snowboard Camps, a coach of the Aspen Snowboard team, and was the color commentator for snowboarding at the 2002 Utah Olympic Winter Games.

MAX MAROLT, a member of one of Colorado's great skiing families, joins brother *Bill in the Colorado Ski Hall of Fame. He is a native Aspenite whose commitment to Colorado skiing has spanned more than 60 years. He found his ski legs early in life. One of his early memories is skiing at night on lower Roch Run with lights and music. Later, the town remembers him soaring off the old mine dumps on Ajax Mountain. Racing was a natural for him and he competed throughout his teen years. From 1954 - 1960 Max was a member of the U.S. Ski Team. He raced in the 1958 FIS championships in Austria and won a place on the 1960 Olympics team at Squaw Valley. That same year he responded to a dare by skiing off a rocky face near the present Alyeska ski area in Alaska. That was before extreme skiing became de rigueur. The peak was later named Max's Mountain. After the Olympics, Max turned his focus to the fledgling professional ski racing tour; then began 40 years of ski industry service by creating the west's first regional ski repair and service center in Aspen. Max's Run at Snowmass commemorates his ongoing contribution to the Aspen ski world.

FRANK PENNEY presided over the ski jumping program at Winter Park for over 35 years. During his long career, he coached 13 National, F.I.S., and Olympic Team members. His enthusiasm, talents, and positive way of teaching helped to mold the character of countless other youngsters as they gained self-reliance, respect for others, and determination. His best memory of ski jumping was of the joy he felt from watching his young charges grow from competitors to outstanding citizens. Frank was born in 1925 and grew up in Grand Lake, Colorado where he put on his first pair of skis in 1932. Two years later he won his first distance jumping competition at the Grand Lake School. During the 1940s -- with a timeout to serve in Europe during World War II -- he jumped in Class A events and was a 1949 Rocky Mountain Division combined winner. In 1965 he joined the Winter Park coaching staff. Frank's inspiration and dedication many Nordic ski jumping programs in America would no longer exist. Thankfully, his legacy lives on through the many athletes and coaches who trained under him during their developmental years or joined his coaching staff from other programs.

MORRIE SHEPARD grew up in Maine where he was a friend of *Pete Seibert. The two boys skied together from age 7. During World War II, Morrie was a Navy pilot and after the war he joined Pete in Colorado where the two became members of the Aspen Ski Patrol. After that first winter, he moved to the ski school and eventually became Assistant Ski School Director to Fred Iselin and Freidl Pfeifer. From 1956 -1960 he was an examiner for the Rocky Mountain Ski Instructors Association and became Chief Examiner during the 1960-1965 period. Morrie left Aspen to join Pete Seibert as he built and launched Vail. He helped lay out the trail system and got deeply involved in the gondola construction and other mountain projects. In the fall of 1962 he assumed his duties as Vail's first Ski School Director and held that position until 1965 when he became National Sales Manager of *Bob Lange's new startup boot company. Not long after that, Morrie oversaw the construction of the Lange Company complex in Boulder. With Lange Boots a worldwide racing success, Morrie Shepard became Vice President of the company until it was purchased in 1973.

PARK SMALLEY has been instrumental in developing what was once a dangerous hot-dog sport into the controlled freestyle sport of today. In 1972 he performed his first back flip on skis at a Salt Lake City hot-dog meet and was hooked. With the vision of what freestyle skiing could become, he helped initiate the International Freestyle Skiers Association and the first professional freestyle tour. In 1976 he opened up a summer freestyling camp at Steamboat Springs that marked the beginning of his long association as coach of the Steamboat Springs Winter Sports Club. By 1983 he had become the first U.S. Freestyle Team head coach, a position he held throughout the decade. During his tenure, the U. S. Freestyle team won four Nations Cup titles, produced nine Grand Prix champions, four world champions and posted more World Cup victories than any ski team in U.S. history. On the international front he helped freestyle skiing gain demonstration status at the 1988 Olympic Games. In 1989 he returned to Steamboat to become head coach of the local team. The Park Smalley Freestyle Aerial Complex at Howelsen Hill is a reminder of the priceless contribution he has made to the skiing world.

For information about the 26th Annual Colorado Ski Hall of Fame Induction Gala, purchasing tickets or becoming a sponsor please call (970) 476-1876.