Skiing Heritage News

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Vermont Hall of Fame inducts Kidd,
Shaw, Merrill, Palmedo, Riley, Witherell

Vermont Ski Museum holds fifth annual ceremony.

Stowe, VT -- The Vermont Ski Museum celebrated its 5th Annual Hall of Fame Induction on Sunday, October 22, 2006. The Museum honored Billy Kidd, Marilyn Shaw McMahon (1924-1989), Perry Merrill (1894-1993), Roland Palmedo (1895-1977), Betsy Snite Riley (1938-1984), and Warren Witherell. These individuals participated in the evolution of the sport, and together their stories tell an evocative story of skiing history.

Few have done more skiing than Roland Palmedo, skisport builder. Not only did he found and design Mad River Glen ski area, but also he spent his life trying to interest people in skiing, downhill and cross country; he fathered the prototype patrol for the N.S.P.S organization, the Stowe Patrol; he got the first chair lift built at Stowe; he foundedd of the Amateur Ski Club of New York and collaborated on the Ski Touring Council.

Perry Merrill, known as “the Man who put Vermont on skis”, ran the Vermont State Forest and Parks from 1930-1966. He found work for 40,000 CCC (Civilian Conservation Corps) boys, reforested over 1530 acres of State land, and built over 100 miles of roads creating public access to four season recreation to Mad River with the McCullough Turnpike, to Burke Mountain and Mt. Ascutney, to Downer State Forest in Sharon, to Groton State Forest, to Montpelier’s Hubbard Park, to Calvin Coolidge State Forest (mainly in Plymouth) and to Mt. Mansfield State Forest in Stowe and Underhill.

Stowe’s Marilyn Shaw began her skiing career in the 1930’s and was slated to participate in the 1940 Olympics. Skiing against the best of the American women in the 1941 National Championships, Marilyn Shaw, now 16, became the National Women’s Slalom Champion. Shaw skied for Sonja Henie in the Hollywood favorite Sun Valley Serenade.

A native of Norwich, Vermont, and a member of the Ford Sayre ski program, Betsy Snite Riley went to Europe for her first race in at age 16. Her father, a retired Dartmouth professor, taught her to ski, and she went on to compete in the 1956 Olympics and to take silver at the 1960 Squaw Valley, CA, Olympics in slalom, to be “Sportsman of the Year” in 1959, and to become North American Women’s Slalom Champion.

Billy Kidd grew up in Stowe; and became an icon in skiing when he won silver in slalom and bronze in the Combined at the 1964 Olympics in Innsbruck, Austria. In 1970, he became the first American man to win both the Amateur and Pro World Championships in the same year. He also won gold in the combined and bronze in the slalom at the World Championships.

Warren Witherell co-founded the first ski academy – Burke Mountain Academy - which he ran as headmaster until 1984, and authored How the Racers Ski, in 1972, a “must-read” in ski racing circles.

The Vermont Ski Museum is a 501 (c)(3) non-profit organization whose mission is to collect, preserve and celebrate Vermont skiing history. For information on tickets for the Induction ceremony, www.vermontskimuseum.org. For more details and to share stories, contact Meredith Scott, Curator, Vermont Ski Museum, 802-253-9911 x 202.

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.

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