US National Ski Hall of Fame

Allais, Emile (OT) 1999
Allen, T. Gary 1992
Andersen, Reidar 1971
Anderson, Graham 1984
Armstrong, Debbie 1984
Atwater, Monte 1979
Auran, John Henry 1999
Autio, Asario 1966
Bakke, Hermod 1972
Bakke, Magnus 1972
Balfanz, John 1980
Barber, Merrill "Mezzy" 1999
Barrymore, Dick (OT) 2000
Barth, Arthur "Red" 1956
Batson, LeMoine 1969
Bauer, George 1991
Beattie, Robert 1984
Beck, Bill (OT) 2000
Bellmar, Fred 1988
Benedikter, Sepp 1977
Bennett, Nelson 1986
Berry, William Banks 1976
Bertram, Wallace "Bunny" 1981
Bietila, Paul 1970
Bietila, Ralph 1975
Bietila, Walter 1965
Bihlman, Georgene 2002
Blake, Ernie 1987
Blegen, Julius 1968
Blood, Edward 1967
Boothe, Jill (Kinmont) 1967
Bounous, Junior 1996
Bousquet, Clare 2003
Bower, John 1969
Boyum, Burton H. 1965
Bradley, David J. Dr. 1985
Bradley, Harold C. Dr 1969
Bradley, Steve 1980
Branch, James R. "Jim" 1994
Bright, Alexander 1959
Bright, Clarita (Heath) Reiter 1968
Broomhall, Wendell "Chummy" 1981
Brown, David "Darcy" 2005
Brown, William R. "Sarge" 1990
Bruun, Fred 1970
Bucher, Jan 1993
Buchmayr, Sigfried 1977
Buek, Richard 1974
Caldwell, John 1983
Carleton, John P. 1968
Carruthers, James H. "Red" 1990
Carter, Hannah (Locke) Caldwell 1973
Chadwick, Gloria 1986
Chaffee, Suzy 1988
Chivers, Howard 1973
Chivers, Warren 1971
Clair, John J. Jr. 1970
Clifford, Elizabeth 1978
Cochran, Barbara Ann (now Williams) 1976
Cochran, Marilyn (now Brown) 1978
Conniff, Cal 1990
Constam, Ernst 2003
Cooke, James Negley 1978
Cooke, Nancy (Reynolds) - now Booth. 1972
Cooper, Christin 1984
Corcoran, Thomas 1978
Couch, Edmund 1976
Curran, James Michael (OT) 2001
Cushing, Alex 2003
Cutter, Christina "Kiki" 1993
Deaver, Sally 1978
Dercum, Edna 1991
Dercum, Max 1983
DesRoches, Ralph A. "Doc" 1977
Devlin, Arthur 1963
Dewey, Godfrey 1970
Dion, Ernest 1984
Dodge, Brooks 1978
Dole, Charles M. "Minnie" 1958
Douglas, Henry Percy 1968
Durrance, Richard 1958
Eaton, Edwin D. 1980
Eldred, William T. 1970
Elkins, Frank 1974
Ellingson, Jimmy 1975
Elmer, Raymond S. Dr. 1959
Elvrum, John 1968
Engen, Alan 2004
Engen, Alf 1959
Engen, Corey 1973
Engen, Sverre 1971
Engl, Sigi 1971
Erickson, E. O. "Buck" 1974
Eriksen, Stein 1982
Farwell, Ted 1992
Ferries, Charles T. (Chuck) 1989
Flaa, James 1974
Foeger, Luggi 1973
Foeger, Walter 2005
Fraser, Donald 1972
Fraser, Gretchen (Kunigk) 1960
Fredheim, Sverre 1973
Fry, John 1995
Gallagher, Michael 1988
Gann, Dodie Post 2001
Gibson, Charles T. 2001
Gillette, Ned 2000
Gmoser, Hans 2002
Golden, Diana 1997
Goodrich, Nathaniel 1971
Griffith, James 1971
Grinden, Harold 1958
Groswold, Gerald 1986
Groswold, Thor B. 2004
Groswold, Thor C. 1970
Hall, Henry 1967
Halstad, Halvar 1977
Halvorsen, Alf 1968
Hamilton, Anne (Heggtveit) 1967
Hannah, Joan 1978
Hannah, Selden 1968
Harriman, W. Averell 1969
Harris, Fred 1957
Haugen, Anders 1963
Haugen, Lars 1963
Hauk, Andrew A. 1975
Head, Howard 1979
Hegge, Ole 1970
Heistad, Erling 1966
Henderson, Barbara (Ferries) Arroyo 1978
Hendrickson, James 1971
Heuga, James 1976
Hicks, Harry Wade 1969
Hill, Clarence "Coy" 1974
Hill, Cortlandt T. 1970
Hirsch, Harold S. 1990
Hodler, Marc 1981
Holman, Katharine (Peckett) 1982
Holmstrom, Carl 1973
Holter, Aksell 1956
Hostvedt, John 1969
Howard, Frank "Doc" 1987
Howelsen, Carl 1969
Hudson, Sally (Neidlinger) 1971
Hunter, James 1978
Hvam, Hjalmar 1967
Igaya, Chiharu "Chick" 1971
Iselin, Fred 1972
Janss, William C. 1979
Jay, John 1981
Jennings, H. Devereaux 1989
Johanson, Sven 1975
Johnson, Janette (Burr) 1970
Johnson, William "Bill" 1984
Johnston, Jimmy 1996
Johnstone, Robert C. 1991
Jones, Gregory 1978
Judson, William David, Jr. 1997
Kiaer, Alice Damrosch Wolfe 1969
Kidd, William 1976
Kidder-Lee, Barbara 1977
Kirschner, H.William "Bill" 2001
Kitt, AJ 2003
Knowlton, Steve P. 1975
Knudsen, Arthur 1973
Koch, William 1976
Kohnstamm, Richard L. 1992
Kotlarek, Gene 1982
Kotlarek, George 1968
Koziol, Felix 1974
Kraus, Hans Dr. 1974
Kreiner, Kathy 1976
Lamb, Vernon 1992
Lamming, Sigrid Stromstad 1972
Lang, Otto 1978
Lange, Bob (OT) 2000
Langley, Roger 1958
Lash, Bill 1983
Lawrence, Andrea (Mead) 1958
Lawrence, David 1966
Leach, George E. Col. 1969
Leimkuehler, Paul 1981
Lekang, Anton 1977
Lien, Harry 1969
Lindh, Hilary 2005
Lindley, Grace Carter (was McKnight) 1966
Litchfield, John P. 2002
Little, Amos Jr. "Bud" Dr. 1965
Little, Earle B. 1972
Livermore, Robert 1977
Luby, Susan (Corrock) Zoberski 1976
Lund, Morten 1997
Lunn, Arnold Sir 1968
MacKenzie, Ron 1971
MacNab, L. B. "Barney" 1970
Macomber, George 1973
Mahre, Phil 1981
Mahre, Steve 1983
Maki, Rudy 1982
Mangseth, Ole R. 1968
Marolt, William C. "Bill" 1993
Matt, Toni 1967
Mattesich, Rudolph "Rudi" 1983
Maurin, Lawrence 1966
McAlpin, Helen (Boughton-Leigh)[Mrs Malcolm] 1968
McCoy, Dave 1967
McCoy, Penny (now Barrett) 1978
McCrillis, John 1966
McCulloch, Ernie 1969
McIntyre, Anna M. 1998
McKinney, Tamara 1984
McLane, Malcolm 1973
McLean, Robert "Barney" 1959
McMahon, Marilyn (Shaw) 1986
McNeil, Fred H. 1957
Merrill, Allison 1974
Mikkelsen, Roy 1964
Mikkelsen, Strand 1974
Miller, Earl A. 1994
Miller, Warren 1978
Mittelstadt, Frederick W. "Fritz" (OT) 1999
Moe, Tommy 2003
Moffett, Webb 1999
Monson, Rolf 1964
Morgan, John E. P. 1972
Movitz, Richard 1970
Mullin, J. Stanley 1973
Nebel, Dorothy (Hoyt) 1972
Nelson, Cindy 1976
Nelson, Nels 1971
Newett, George A. 1970
Nishkian, Byron 1976
Norheim, Sondre 1974
Nunn, Jerry 2003
Obermeyer, Klaus 1997
Oden, Dr. Robert 2002
Oimoen, Casper 1963
O'Leary, Hal 1994
Olson, Willis "Billy" 1972
Omtvedt, Ragnar 1967
Overby, Sigurd 1976
Pabst, Fred 1969
Palmedo, Roland 1968
Parker, Robert 1985
Patterson, Peter 1978
Paulsen, Guttorm 1971
Peabody, Roger 1976
Peabody, Roland 1979
Pedersen, Olav 2000
Pederson, Ernest O. 1968
Perrault, Paul Joseph 1971
Petersen, Eugene 1965
Pfeifer, Friedl 1980
Pfeiffer, J. Douglas 1987
Pike, Penny (Pitou) Zimmerman 1976
Pollard, Harry 1976
Poulsen, Wayne 1980
Prager, Walter 1977
Proctor, Charles A. 1966
Proctor, Charles N. 1959
Quinney, Joseph S. 1975
Raaum, Gustav 1980
Raine, Nancy (Greene) 1969
Rasmussen, Wilbert 1988
Reddish, Jack 1969
Reed, Carroll P. 2002
Reid, Robert 1975
Riley, Betsy (Snite) 1976
Rinaldo, Ben 1985
Robes, Ernest C. "Bill" 1987
Robie, Wendell 1964
Rockwell, Martha 1986
Roffe, Diann 2003
Rowan, David 1996
Ruschp, Sepp 1978
Ruud, Birger 1970
Ruud, Sigmund 1970
Ryan, Joseph B. 1977
Rybizka, Benno 1991
Rytting, Suzy (Harris) 1988
Sailer, Erich 2005
Satre, Magnus 1963
Satre, Ottar 1971
Saubert, Jean 1976
Schaeffler, Willy 1974
Schneider, Hannes 1958
Schneider, Herbert 1992
Schniebs, Otto 1967
Schoenknecht, Walter 1979
Schroll, Hannes 1966
Scott, Edward (OT) 1999
Seibert, Pete 1984
Serafini, Enzo 1977
Severud, Lloyd 1970
Sigal, Albert E. 1971
Sise, Albert 1983
Smith-Johannsen, Herman "Jack Rabbit" 1969
Smith, Preston Leete 2000
Sorensen, Harald "Pop" 1973
Sosman, Dr. Leland 1999
Steadman, Dr. J. Richard 1989
Steinwall, Siegfried 1969
Stiegler, Josef "Pepi" (OT) 2001
Stiles, Merritt H. Dr. 1975
Stone, Nicole "Nikki" 2002
Strand, Hans 1975
Strand, Marthinius 1958
Strauss, Michael (OT) 2001
Street, Picabo 2004
Strom, Erling 1972
Tanler, Bill 1998
Taylor, Clif 1979
Taylor, Dorice 1984
Taylor, Edward F. 1956
Teichner, Hans "Pepi" 1967
Teichner, Helmut 1983
Tellefsen, Carl 1956
Thomas, Lowell Sr. 1966
Thompson, Conrad 1966
Thompson, John A. "Snowshoe" 1970
Tikalsky, Linda (Meyer) 1982
Tokle, Arthur 1970
Tokle, Torger 1959
Torrissen, Birger 1972
Townsend, Ralph 1975
Ulland, Olav 1981
Vaage, Jakob 1976
Valar, Paul 1985
Valar, Paula (Kann) 1970
Vaughn, Lucille (Wheeler) 1976
Watson, George H. 1969
Weinbrecht, Donna 2004
Werner, Wallace "Buddy" 1964
Wictorin, John 1970
Wigglesworth, Marian (McKean) 1966
Wiik, Sven 1981
Wilson, Eugene 1982
Wise, Anthony 1988
Witherell, Warren 1998
Woods, Henry S. "Bem" 1966
Woodward, John 1998
Woolsey, Elizabeth D. "Betty" 1969
Wren, Gordon 1958
Wurtele, Rhoda (now Eaves) 1969
Wurtele, Rhona (now Gillis) 1969
Wyatt, Katy (Rodolph) 1966

U.S. National Ski Hall of Fame

A detailed history

The most prestigious and most-discussed repository of the ski history of the United States, both as an institution and as real estate, resides in a beautifully architected building on Michigan's Upper Peninsula in the town of Ishpeming. Known simply as "the ski hall of fame" The building contains the hundred-and-some photos and biographies of its Honored Members, chosen by the institution. It is also a museum, with three-dimensional displays of important facets of U.S. ski history, and it is a library containing over a thousand books pertinent to ski history.

The U.S. National Ski Hall of Fame building in Ishpeming, Michigan was inspired by the early ski jump of the kind that made the Michigan Upprer Peninsula famous. Below: A ski and snow shoe club on the Upper Peninsula, cica 1890, typified the region’s early interest in snow sports.
1890 Yoopers
A HISTORY OF THE U.S. SKI HALL OF FAME AND MUSEUM

The most prestigious, most-discussed repository of the ski history of the United States is both an institution and real estate residing in a beautifully architected building on Michigan's Upper Peninsula in the town of Ishpeming. Known simply as "the ski hall of fame," the building’s signature display consists of the three hundred-and-some photos and biographies of its Honored Members, chosen by the institution. It is also a museum, with three-dimensional displays of important eras of ski history, and it has a library containing over 1500 books pertinent to ski history.

The U. S. National Ski Hall of Fame and Museum, to give its full name, has many strange things about it. Among them is the Hall's remote location, far from any of the great ski resorts. Another is that it embodies a turn-of-the-past-century phenomenon that was back then a new concept entirely. Luckily, a little delving into historical research and it can all be explained.

The phenomenon in question was the hall of fame movement started as an academic exercise in prestige-making. The countries of the entire European continent from which Americans came have a history of kings and nobles going back to medieval times. America does not and thus was born the idea of inventing a contemporary. In this particular case, it began at a single, definable moment a bit over a hundred years ago, namely the founding of The Hall of Fame of Great Americans.

Birth of a Hall
Created in 1901 by Henry Mitchell MacCracken, who was the founding chancellor of New York University,, the Hall’s aim was to strengthen the university’s public image by having it give the U. S. a Single polers leg up on establishing a pantheon of nobles. MacCracken had come up with an inspired idea, and his implementation was excellent. He picked the criteria for election and set up a board of electors in a tremendously original, very American effort whose success resounded throughout this land.

Its first manifestation came at NYU itself and consisted of statuary in a double line, likenesses of Hall members standing stiffly and silently on the Fordham Heights campus in The Bronx. The annual installation at the Hall was attended by a notable gathering of power and talent from across the country. Politicians scientists, authors and artists prominent in the U.S. at the time prized election to MacCracken's "Hall of Fame" nearly as much as a Nobel Prize.
Within a couple of generations there were halls of fame founded from coast-to-coast honoring high achievers in every field. John McCarthy, in his The Sports Halls of Fame, writes, "Time has not changed man's obsession with bestowing awards and adulation’s [sic] upon his heroes, especially sports heroes. The American sports enthusiasts are probably the most prolific in their generosity towards this form of flattery." There were of course several halls for cowboys, businessmen and daredevils but it was the major sports, the baseball, football and basketball halls of fame that got the media’s attention. Nevertheless imitators among minor sports sprang up for every direction. Today some 200 sports halls of fame exist within the U.S. In due course, the hall of fame concept spread to skiing. and The U.S. National Ski Hall of Fame was duly born in 1956.

A Remote Location
The U.S. Ski Hall of Fame and Museum was located at Ishpeming on the Michigan Upper Peninsula, at first glance, an improbable choice. The Upper Peninsula is the definition of out-of-the-way, bounded by Lake Superior and Lake Michigan and accessible only by bridge and ferry from the main part of Michigan. This is the route for those coming from the east.
Those coming from the east have a long overland haul through Wisconsin. Isthmus inhabitants, preponderantly of Norwegian immigrant descent, have adopted proudly the name inflicted on them, "Yoopers," which purports to be the Norse immigrant pronunciation of "Uppers."
Upper Peninsula winters are formidable. Moist air overhanging the Great Lakes catches the frequent rush of cold Canadian air coming down from the frigid north and the confluence creates a "lake effect" consisting of copious snow storms generating an average yearly snowfall of some 250 inches of snow a winter. As much snow falls on the Yoopers living slightly above sea-level as on the citizens of Aspen six thousand feet up in the Colorado Rockies. Naturally most visitors find it more convenient to come in the summer and fall. Those who fly into the Upper Peninsula land at Marquette's new Sawyer International Airport on the eastern end where they can taxi west along U.S. 41 past fin de siecle strip malls that line some of the twenty-five miles to Ishpeming.

There, smack on U.S. 41, seen first between two fast-food palaces and a large self-service gas station rises the modernistic roof of the U.S. Ski Hall of Fame and Museum. It shelters a noble building, fronted by the flags of all the skiing nations. The soaring roof peak descends in a graceful curve to the eaves, an emulation of the sweeping silhouette of a ski jump of generous dimensions. The U.S. Ski Hall of Fame is a $2.7-million testament to the persistence of Ishpeming citizens.

A Geological Accident
To understand why the stunningly beautiful U.S; National Ski Hall of Fame home rises here in such stark contradiction to its surroundings is to know that the town of Ishpeming itself is an accident of geology. Thick veins of iron ore in huge quantity abounded under the Upper Peninsula soil, a discovery that initiated a furious fifty years of mining peaking in the last third of the 1800s. By 1900, the Upper Peninsula had a population of tens of thousands drawn from mining districts of the western world. First came the Cornish, followed by Norwegian, followed by Finns and, finally, Italians.

The height of Norwegian immigration onto the peninsula coincided with the rise of ski jumping in the home country. Many of the rural male immigrants had flown if only briefly on "wings of wood." The Upper Peninsula was jumping heaven ready to happen.
Given the copious snow every winter, not surprisingly in the late 1800s, peninsula recreation depended on skis. Without television., nor even much in the way of radio and certainly without gambling halls, winter was boring. Jumping tournaments fit the needs of isolated Yoopers. As the mines stripped the Upper Peninsula of ore worth more than the gold taken from California, Upper Peninsula villages grew into towns harboring a growing cadre of jumpers and a populace eager to witness their courage and to bet on the outcomes.

Where Jumping Thrived
The first actual recorded tournament in the Midwest took place in St. Paul, Minnesota, January 25, 1887. Starting from a tower all of twenty feet high, the Norwegian champion Mikkel Hemmestveit went 60 feet in the air to win. Then Hemmestvedt and his brother Torjus took the sport west to Red Wing, Minnesota with an exhibition tourney on February 8, 1887, sponsored by the year-old Aurora Ski Club of Red Wing. That very year, the idea of jumping spread to the Upper Peninsula and Ishpeming soon became a particular hotbed of jumping culture. .On the Upper Peninsula after 1900, any town aiming to rank as a place worth living in had at least one big jump trestle. It became a matter of civic pride. The movement was supported by generous donations from the Upper Peninsula mining companies. Along the entire peninsula, ski clubs were founded, copying the organization of earlier Norwegian ski clubs the immigrants had known in their homeland. In Ishpeming, dozens of small backyard jumps were fashioned out of the plentiful snow and a few larger ones were built from trusses of native iron.

The Ishpeming Ski Club was organized in 1887 as the Norden Ski Club. A year later, it changed its name to Den Nordiske Ski Club (the Nordic Ski Club) to reflect its ethnic makeup. Business during club meetings was mostly transacted in Norwegian. Then diversity set in. With the arrival of Finns, the name was changed in 1901 to the Ishpeming Ski Club and meetings were thenceforth conducted in English. From that came a gradual growth toward the birth of organized skiing and, eventually, the founding of the U.S. National Ski Hall of Fame
The first few regional tournaments in the Midwest evolved into a loosely-bound circuit of five clubs. Eau Clair, Ishpeming, Stillwater, Red Wing, and Minneapolis formed a Central Ski Association of the Northwest in 1891, the first regional organization of ski clubs in the U.S. Ishpeming held the first Central Ski Association tournament on Lake Superior Hill in 1891. Some 200 participants showing up.

The organization expired in 1893 after several warm winters but "Central" was a forerunner of a more ambitious association founded 12 years later, It was called the Central Ski Association. At the turn of the last century, the Ishpeming club remained the most active in the Central region, holding as many as three meets a year, organizing major tourneys in 1901, 1902 and 1903. This reflected a ferment of ski jumping bubbling across the Midwest.

Norwegians Ascendant
The leading academic U.S. ski historian, John Allen, wrote in his From Skisport to Skiing: "In the thirty years from about 1880 to 1910, which coincide with the peak years of Scandinavian immigration, local clubs promoted the skisport and laid the foundation for modern skiing." On any given Sunday in the first decades of the 1900s, there were, at a guess, at least half as many ski jumpers taking the air in the Midwest on any given weekend as in the sport&Mac185;s native Norway. A new American sport had been solidly founded in these meets. Focused almost exclusively on jumping, these meets were the core of wintertime public life in the Midwest.

The Ishpeming Ski Club
In 1904, the Ishpeming Ski Club put on the first of three annual competitions that would establish the idea of a "national championship." The first meet in 1904 was billed as "the 14th Annual Ski Jumping Tournament of the Ishpeming Ski Club." It was a success, drawing a large crowd of spectators, Ishpemingis Conrad Thompson, a Norwegian, won the meet. (His family name was obviously anglicized by immigration officials unable to deal with the native pronunciation as was the case with the famous Sierra mail carrier "Snowshoe Thompson," born Jon Tostensen Rue in Telemark, Norway).

After the success of the 1904 tournament, the president of the Ishpeming Ski Club, Carl Tellefsen, convened club officers to make plans for an even more spectacular tournament in 1905. The tournament was a huge success. Some 8,000 onlookers cheered Ole Westgard of Ishpeming as he executed the winning jumps. The Ishpeming Ski Club sometime thereafter decided to elevate the competition of 1905 into "the national tournament" and awarded Westgard, after the fact, a "national championship." Many consequences flowed from this first award of a U.S. national ski title of any kind.

At the meeting of the five clubs after the tournament, officers from the five competing clubs came to an agreement to regulate tournaments and draft stricter rules to pin down fine points of judging and competition. On February 21, 1905, Tellefsen announced the name of the new organization, the National Ski Association. Tellefsen had been elected president.
Calling the new grouping "the National Ski Association" was a bit brave since it relied on the great success of what was, at best, a regional championship. But the title stuck. Ishpeming’s subsequent 1906 tournament was billed The Second National Ski Tournament; solidifying the idea of a national ski competition ruled by a national ski organization and headed by a national president.

Rewriting History
Unfortunately, there followed one of those unhappy attempts to rewrite history. The Ishpeming club claimed later that the 1904 meeting, which consisted solely of the Ishpeming club officers, constituted the real founding of the NSA. The club began calling the 1904 meet the "first national championship," even though it had not been called that at the time. This confusion is mirrored in the national jumping record books listing the 1904 winner, Conrad Thompson, as the first national champion. But John Allen's research into the minutes of the Ishpeming Ski Club with the help of then Hall president Burton Boyum resulted in 1905 being restored as the founding date of the first national championship and the NSA as well.

After 1905, NSA grew slowly until it became the ruling body of national ski competition, predominantly nordic jumping. But a rival was in the wings. In 1922 at Saranac Lake, New York, six ski clubs formed a rival group, the Eastern Amateur Ski Association. It became the first regional organization to sponsor alpine ski racing. USEASA, along with other regional bodies organized a bit later across the continent, eventually affiliated with the NSA to make it a truly national umbrella organization, with headquarters in Ishpeming, of course. Ishpeming began to be regarded as the capital city of U.S. skiing.

Journalist Harold Grinden of Duluth was named NSA president in 1928 and 1929. Grinden also became the first National Ski Historian. It was he who came up with the happy notion of a National Ski Museum mostly because he had read glowing reports by American visitors to Sweden's Skidmuseet, founded in Stockholm in 1912. He also had good reports on Norway's Skimuseett, a museum that had been built on the Holmenkollen jump hill above Oslo in 1923.
But the idea took a long time to become reality. At the 1941 NSA convention in Milwaukee, Grinden addressed the delegates on the need for a national ski museum to be housed in Ishpeming, for logical historical reasons. There was no permanent U.S. ski team organization so Grinden cited the need for a home for national trophies and historical ephemera as a main reason for building a national museum.

Nothing came out of that meeting. But at the February, 1944 NSA Anniversary Dinner in Ishpeming, NSA's then president, Roger Langley, again brought up Grinden's earlier proposal but World War II was ongoing, so no immediate action ensued. In 1948, the war was out of the way, and the Ishpeming Ski Club gathered its forces at the NSA convention in Chicago and again proposed a NSA ski museum for Ispheming. The club offered to develop the plans and be responsible for overseeing the construction. The other regions would contribute to the funding. The building would belong to the NSA as a whole. At the urging of Burt Boyum, then an officer of the huge Cleveland Cliffs iron mining company in Ishpeming, the several U.S. regional divisions jointly agreed to kick in a total of $10,000 ($50,000 in today's money) to get the ball rolling. The Ishpeming Ski Club led the drive to raise the remaining funds, helped by a $5,000 interest-free loan from the city of Ishpeming. The idea of a national ski museum had been fairly launched.

Building the Museum
During the next year, the National Museum Committee (1949-1951), chaired by Burton Boyum, helped notably by members Arthur Barth, Roger Langley, Harold Grinden and John Hostvedt, completed the necessary fund-raising. A Building Committee and an Advisory Board, composed mostly of Ishpeming citizens, guided the project from drafting board to fulfillment. In 1952, the NSA approved a change of name to the U.S. National Ski Hall of Fame & Museum, which it still retains. The hall of fame idea was an afterthought but an obvious one, given that sports halls were still popping up all over the U.S.. Having the national museum double as the national ski hall of fame made sense.

Construction of the museum building commenced in 1953. The building itself was a two-story cinderblock 34 feet wide by 52 feet long. It cost $50,000 or $250,000 in today’s dollars. Dedication ceremonies were held on February 19, 1954, at the NSA National Nordic Championships. High-ranking ski officials from all over the U.S. and some from Europe arrived bearing gifts for the new museum. The first floor housed the historical displays. The second floor was at first rented out to Ishpeming civic organizations to help pay interest on the loans but was later turned into the Hall library and display space. The whole building was owned outright by the NSA through the NSA Historical Committee, chaired by Harold Grinden. None of the members were part of the museum organization.

William Banks Berry, a Western ski journalist who rediscovered the early California miners races, was a member of that committee who later became its dynamo. Burt Boyum, became the museum's first curator. Most of the Hall’s operating funds were supplied as part of the NSA annual budget. In 1956, the first four inductees to the U.S. Ski Hall of Fame were named by Grinden's Historical Committee.

They were thereafter forever known as Honored Members. Chosen for their part in founding the NSA were Carl Tellefsen, Aksel Holter, Arthur J. Barth and Edward F. Taylor, all but Taylor deceased. The election followed no formal selection criteria. Very wisely, no officer of the hall played a part in selection, a separation of powers still observed to shield the Hall from controversy: an autonomous Selection Committee conducts the election of Honored Members, the Hall runs their induction. There had so far been no real discussion of the conceptual goal of the Hall. Was it conceived in order to install, eventually, every notable in the sport's history? No one had thought to pose that question.

Picking by Desire
From 1956 on, the development of the election process and the credibility of the U.S. National Ski Hall of Fame were interwoven, sometimes in a tangled web. Election formulas changed every time powerfully persuasive selection chairmen arrived. The honor of election was widely desired but the methods for bestowing it gyrated to and fro, from greater to lesser effectiveness and back. A lot of passion and intrigue was expended. Improvement, not necessarily in a straight line progressed by the decade. There was a gain.

Those who do not find politics edifying (it was vital to the survival of the Hall) are allowed to skip down to the last few paragraphs of this text to see how it all came out. At first, members of Harold Grinden's NSA Historical Committee decided on inductees, depending on their own desires. Excluding 1960 and 1961, when there were no elections, the first eight years of the Hall, from 1956 through 1965 saw 34 persons elected to the Hall; just a tad over four annually, matching the average per year elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame through the years.

Two Honored Members, "the class of 1957," were elected the second year. Then there followed two more liberal elections; in 1958 and 1959, a total of 14 were honored, among them the first ski racers: Dick Durrance, Andy Mead, Gordy Wren, Alex Bright, Alf Engen, Barney McLean, Charley Proctor, and Torger Tokle. It was vast improvement in the Hall roster in terms of getting nationally-known contributors to the growth and fame of the sport into the Hall. Then in 1960, a more conservative approach took over. NSA restricted election to not more than two Honored Members a year, each needing 75% of votes cast by a panel of judges. Such A rigid standard resulted in only one new member in the class of 1960, Gretchen Fraser. No elections at all were held in 1961 and 1962.

The pattern of periodic swings between conservative and liberal election processes continued in 1962, when the NSA renamed itself the United States Ski Association (USSA) The USSA named Harold Grinden chairman of the USSA National Ski Hall of Fame and Historical Committee. Grinden served for two more years during which the Committee selected five Honored Members in 1963 and four more in 1964 but the quality of Honored members during Grinden's reign was somewhat uneven.

The Bill Berry Regime
In 1964, Grinden retired; the USSA named Reno ski journalist William Banks Berry to be chairman of the Historical Committee and USSA National Historian. Bill Berry was an imposing figure, an advocate by nature and formidable fighter in the bureaucratic trenches. As a ski journalist, he felt that far too few worthies had been ushered through the Hall’s doors and drew up a "master list" of those he considered eligible, convincing the USSA 1967 convention in Lake Placid to approve a liberal election procedure. Under his new system, Berry presented a slate from his master list in four categories of five names each, a total of 20. Those voting had to approve the slate as a whole or reject it.

For better or worse, the all-or-nothing selection had become a one-man show. During the 12 years from 1966 through 1978, annual induction numbers went into the double digits, with a bumper crop of 20 in 1969. There had been obvious need to bring in more ski pioneers, more top U.S. competitors and more early resort developers to give the Hall a solid representation of high achievers. But eventually, a chorus of complaint against Berry built up: the one-man election system sometimes slipped somewhat obscure names in among the crowd of real stars.

Berry himself, in his 1971 report to the board of directors stated that in two years, the committee should revert to a more limited annual quota. But a new process was instituted after a USSA administrative glitch enlarged the Historical Committee past its traditional eight members Bill Berry neatly split part of the membership off into a Selection Subcommittee. That s[lit underlay the split between selectors and electors that still holds today.

Berry Resigns
Bill Berry announced his resignation in 1972 as chairman of the Historical Committee, noting that during his seven-year tenure nearly 100 Honored Members had been elected to the Hall. He remained a committee member and remained National Historian. During the next four years, Berry wrote the Historical Committees annual report to the USSA and remained highly influential in the elections, which continued on his all-or nothing system. The next two who succeeded Berry as chairman of the Historical Committee did not remain onboard long, each complaining of Berry’s interference from his position as Historian.

In 1976 came a year of stormy weather for the Ishpeming loyalists. First of all, some $2,000 raised by Ishpeming citizens on behalf of the Hall was absorbed into the USSA budget and was not put back into the maintenance of the Hall. This understandably, chilled local fund-raising.
Then unexpectedly, at the USSA convention in Boston, the officers of the Western Skisport Museum at Boreal Ridge, California, proposed that the Ski Hall of Fame be moved to their museum. Citing the meagerness of the budget at Ishpeming, The Western Skisport Museum promised to fund the Hall lavishly. As if that were not enough, the USSA at the same convention decided to focus its energies on the national team and drop its obligation to support the Hall.

After much commotion on the floor and in back rooms of the convention, the Hall was granted a year's support before the divorce. The decision on the relocation was deferred to a November, 1976 USSA meeting. At t hat point, Ishpeming citizens were, in effect, threatened with removal of the institution they had kept going for 20 years.

To oversee the difficult transition for the Hall to a stand-alone organization, the USSA appointed Red Carruthers, a gentleman of the old school, a member of the Historical Committee, with a mandate to reorganize the support structure of the Hall and fashion a conservative election system. Red had lost an eye in a skiing accident but had remained active in USEASA. He was an innovator who, as he says, was always fascinated by the "lore of skiing." Red was named National Historian and Berry became Historian Emeritus. Red's reign lasted 13 years

The Carruthers Era
Carruthers first effort was to found an Ishpeming-based Society of the Ski Hall of Fame, that could raise its museum funds and set the Hall budget. It was, and is, an independent corporation registered under the laws of the State of Michigan. In November, 1976, given the promise from the Society to support the Hall, the USSA met and defeated the relocation proposal, a happy end to a difficult year for Ishpeming.

In 1977, Carruthers changed the election process; naming two experienced ski writers as consulting Historical Committee Members: Mike Strauss of the New York Times and Morten Lund, then a contributing editor to Ski. Carruthers new rules allowed nominations could be made by anyone. The committee would sift the nominees, reduce the list to ten candidates and present them on a ballot to a new and larger voting panel of more than 100 people, including many Honored Members of the Ski Hall of Fame, officers of USSA, ranking ski industry figures and ski journalists.

Each member of the voting panel was to have six votes. To be successful, each nominee had to have the vote of 60% of the electors, or roughly 60 votes. The math worked out to elect a maximum of six inductees in one year, but left open the possibility that only one (or even no one) would be elected.
Carruthers added a proviso that North American Olympic and world medal winners be elected automatically, retroactive to include all medallists up to 1976. Under that proviso, in 1976, U.S. ski team members Barbara Ann Cochran, Susan Cork, Jimmy Hedge, Billy Kid, Penny Pit, Jean Soubrette, Betsy Snit, Lucille Wheeler, Bill Koch, Cindy Nelson and Kathy Kernel were elected to the Hall, a cohort overdue for the honor. When Bill Berry protested that the revisions implicitly belittled his accomplishments; Carruthers assuaged Berry, who, incidentally, was elected to the Hall that year. Carruthers kept him on the committee. In his 1977 report, Carruthers gave generous credit to Berry for his work.

Carruthers' electoral innovations were codified in the Rules of Governance which, somewhat modified, still govern the main election process to this day, even though an adjunct Old Timers Committee has been added. Carruthers found a solid man to carry on as chairman of the Selection Subcommittee, Bill Downs of Helena, Montana.

In 1984, the USSA severed most of its remaining connection to the U.S. Ski Hall of Fame and Museum, turning over the museum real estate and memorabilia to the Society of the Ski Hall of Fame.

On July 17, 1984, a Michigan-registered corporation was set up to ensure the Hall’s independence. However, by agreement negotiated by Burt Boyum, then the Hall’s president, the Hall remained under the general umbrella of the USSA which continued to handle the payroll and social benefits for the Hall's staff who would technically remain USSA employees. It was also agreed that of the Hall’s fifteen directors, eight should come from the USSA National Historical Committee and seven from the Ishpeming region.

Carruthers recruited New England ski historian Allen Adler to help write biographies for Hall nominees. Adler was named to the Selection Subcommittee in 1984. By that time a Gold Medal Committee of USSA, chaired by Dick Goetzman of Long Beach, California, had amended the selection rules, deleting the automatic election of medal winners. U.S. racers would be eligible for election only five years after retiring from competition and then had to be nominated in the regular fashion.That has recently been reduced to one year.

The Adler years.
In 1989, Red Carruthers and Bill Downs stepped down and the USSA named Allen Adler chairman of both the USSA Historical and Selection Committees, as well as National Historian, three hats Adler still wears. His goal has been to apply equitably, with neither fear nor favor, the Rules of Governance in electing new members to the Hall.

By this time, the two-story cinder-block museum had become too crowded to contain the growing collection of ski memorabilia. The Society began a fund-raising drive to build a more striking home for the Hall that would project a properly exalted view of the sport’s history. It would expand the space available for display, memorabilia, storage. The ultimate goal was to move the building to Highway 41, rather than have it hidden on a back street.

It is always tempting to underestimate the determination of the Peninsula citizens to meet the challenges of their stewardship of the Hall of Fame. This time around, they showed estimable ability, persuading the State of Michigan to give outright $500,000 grant for the new building; they raised or borrowed another $2.2 million more to erect the present magnificent structure, which was dedicated in October, 1991.

The effort left a debt of $250,000 that was slowly but surely reduced by fund-raising efforts of the Ishpeming citizens about whom not enough can be said. It is only fair to recognize that the Yoopers, denizens of their far northern peninsula,. have supported the Hall through thick and thin. Their generosity, warmth and hospitality invariably impresses Honored Members during their Induction Weekend during which citizens enthusiastically ferry candidates from function to function and man the stations at all the weekend’s receptions and dinners. Year after year, the Ishpeming volunteers cope with the thankless daily tasks of running a nonprofit organization with a sizable yearly budget.
Many of them have donated heavily or loaned substantial amounts of personal funds, pledging personal property as collateral. They finally managed to build the new Hall, a building with stunning impact on even a casual drive-by observer, a marvel of modern architecture that deeply expresses the spirit of the sport.

Their new Hall of Fame building is five times larger than the first Hall. Its high, vaulted ceiling caps two exhibit floors. The big glass front doors open on a large lobby, gift shop, offices, and a meeting room. The substantial Roland Palmedo Memorial Library, a gift from the Palmedo family, lies across the hallway from the meeting room. Straight ahead lies the Hall of Fame exhibit, the showcase of photographs of its over three hundred Honored Members as well as the USSA’s national ski trophies.

Beyond the Hall exhibit lies the U.S. National Ski Museum. It consists of a "walk- through ski history," beginning with glass-encased replicas of the Stone Age carvings of skiers. This is followed by a large display case showing the rescue of the babe-in-arms Norwegian prince by two Viking skiers in birchbark leggings, the "Birkebeiner," gave rise to the birkebeiner marathons all over ski country today).

Upstairs around a reception space stands a display of uphill transport, early rope tow, poma, Skimobile car, three single chairlifts and gondola car. The basement has a large storage area and a temperature-and-humidity-controlled room to preserve historical materials. It is, in short, an exceptional facility, rewarding visitors with a solid intriguing glimpse of the history of the sport.
In 1997, the U.S. National Ski Hall of Fame & Museum added ten directors to bring the total to 25: new blood, new vitality, new vision to chart a productive future. In an effort to broaden the museum's base of appeal, the board of directors chose Dick Goetzman, a longtime member of the Hall's board and a past president of USSA as the first non-Yooper president, a man with a proven capability to negotiate the upper strata of organized skiing to continue to steer the Ski Hall of Fame, toward its centennial in 2004. His goal is t/ make it a most appropriate national shrine for those who have truly achieved pinnacles in the sport of skiing.

The Left-Out Problem Solved
The Hall’s main remaining unsolved chronic problem was the fact that any well-researched, comprehensive history of American skiing would feature a good number of names absent from the roster of the Ski Hall of Fame. This was to counter the shortcomings of the regular system.
The Baseball Hall of Fame electors are sportswriters who know intimately the quality of the nominees. But when it comes to the U.S. Ski Hall of Fame, any determined group of sponsors can and sometimes do nominate and push for its Hall of Fame candidate with a fair chance at success regardless of the candidate’s merits, while more worthy candidates languish for lack of an organized campaign. It was all too easy to compile a personal list of deserving "left-outs" but, without the inclusion of a sizable chunk of these obviously eligible skiers, the Hall’s credibility was increasingly at risk. The chance of adding a substantial number of the neglected but deserving ski notables left out under the old rules was nil.

In 1997, Allen Adler as chairman of the selection committee took the first step and acknowledged that a problem existed. Then he addressed the problem. Adler consulted a number of ski journalists including John Fry, then founding editor of Snow Country, (and now President of the International Skiing History Association), as well as ISHA Vice President (and former Skiing editor) Doug Pfeiffer. He also consulted Ski Area Management publisher David Rowan and Morten Lund the editor of the ISHA quarterly Skiing Heritage.

These four veteran journalists came up with a comprehensive list of over a hundred names found to be eminently eligible for election to the Hall. Using this list as a starting point, Adler devised a formula for electing those early notables of the sport.

He convinced the Hall's board of directors to appoint an Old Timers Selection Committee, which he chairs, to conduct an elimination primary by picking their top ten then, in a second vote, rank the top six vote-gutters in order of preference. The Old Timers final voting panel of 25 Honored Members votes yes or no on the top three names.

These top three every year have so far all been elected alongside those elected by the regular route. The Honored Members elected since 1998 have been more representative than ever before of historically distinguished skiers. This has done much to shore up the Hall’s credibility with knowledgeable skiers looking for relevance of any Honored Member to ski history.
In 2001, at the urging of board member, Glenn Parkinson (also a member of the ISHA board), President Goetzman began negotiations with ISHA to make its quarterly Skiing Heritage the official journal for both ISHA and The U.S. National Ski Hall of Fame and Museum. The goal is to tie the Hall to firmly to the ongoing coast-to-coast movement of preserving authentic ski history, the primary mission of the journal and of ISHA. This move could solidify the Hall’s position as primary keeper of the historical flame.

When all is said and done, though, no matter how relevant and contemporary the Hall becomes, the Hall will always have the most intense appeal for veteran skiers who are truly imbued with the traditions of the sport. Typically, such veterans know by heart the traditional jump song, which was brought to Ishpeming by Jakob Vaage, Norway’s great ski historian.
The song is still sung by all inductees onstage, enthusiastically, for a finale to the event, and it goes like this:

Underneath the takeoff
Every Sunday morn
There comes a bunch of jolly skiers
To jump and show their form.

They are big and small, small and big
They all come dressed in their skiing rig.
Then they jump until they’re blue,
And when they all get through,
The president pulls the string,
And they drop their skis and sing:

"Ja, ja, vi skal ha
Lutefisk og lefse
Lutefisk og lefse
Ja, ja, vi skal ha
Lutefisk og lefse
Brenevin og snuss."

The chorus, in Norwegian, delivers the demand of the roistering contestants at a jump meet for a round of Norwegian apres-jumping delicacies to be served directly after the last jump without delay. The essential translation is:

"Yes, yes, we shall have
Lye-soaked fish and griddle cake,
Malt whisky and snuff "

The probable disastrous gustatory results of the delicacies are unsung, but the survival of the ritual song in the induction ceremony certainly indicates how well tradition survives in today’s Hall.

JOURNAL OF ISHA, THE INTERNATIONAL SKIING HISTORY ASSOCIATION
The International Skiing History Association is a not-for-profit corporation, whose mission is to preserve and advance the knowledge of ski history and to increase public awareness of the sport's heritage.

ISHA, 530 Cheese Factory Rd., So. Burlington VT 05403 802-863-2511 x2020
Skiing Heritage, 133 South Van Gordon St #300, Lakewood CO 80228 303-987-1111