Lives

Founder and president of U.S.A. Snowboarding

Gordon Robbins
Passing Date: February 27, 2015

Gordon Robbins, a founder and president of the U.S.A. Snowboarding Association, died in Winhall, Vermont, on February 27, 2015, at the age of 73. Robbins also served as chairman of the Snowboard Committee (1993–98) for PSIA-E/AASI, as executive director of the International Snowboard Federation,...

Mad River Glen and 1960 Olympic ski patrol veteran

Howard Martin
Passing Date: February 14, 2015

Howard Wesley Martin, whose long ski patrol career was highlighted by service at the 1960 Squaw Valley Olympics, died February 14, 2015. He was 88. Martin was born and raised in Montpelier, Vermont.  After high school he worked sanding floors, then set up his own home renovation business, Martin’s...

Cross country champion and Twin Cities coach

Normal Oakvik
Passing Date: February 3, 2015

Norman Gunnar Oakvik, a pioneer of cross-country skiing in the Twin Cities, died on February 3 in Minneapolis. He was 94.  Born in Minneapolis to Norwegian immigrant parents, Norm was given a pair of wooden jumping skis at an early age by his father. He trained with the 10th Mountain Division...

Nordic Combined champ, ski resort consultant

Ted Farwell
Passing Date: January 25, 2015

Ted Farwell -- NCAA and National champion, Olympian and ski resort consultant -- died on Sunday, January 25, after a short battle with mesothelioma, the severe form of lung cancer caused by exposure to asbestos.  Ted's mother grew up skiing in Brattleboro, Vt. She put him on skis at age two, and at...

Aspen Times reporter, editor

Mary Eshbaugh Hayes
Passing Date: January 22, 2015

Aspen reporter Mary Eshbaugh Hayes, known to readers and fans as MEH, died Jan. 22 of pancreatic cancer. She was 86. Hayes joined The Aspen Times in 1952 as a reporter and photographer. Over the next 20 years she worked as a freelance writer while raising her family. She returned to the Times as a...

Ski School Director

Tom Rainone
Passing Date: January 20, 2015

Gaetano Thomas Rainone, 84, passed away on January 20, 2015 at his Catskill Mountain home. Tom was born in Brooklyn and raised in Saugerties, N.Y. He attended the New York Military Academy, where he was a varsity diver and captain of the baseball team, and Sienna College near Albany. He studied...

Mountaineer and founder of Keystone Center

Robert Craig
Passing Date: January 16, 2015

Robert Craig, a scholar and mountaineer who founded the Keystone Center, died in Denver on January 16, 2015 at age 90. Born in 1924 in California, Craig moved in the mid-1930s to Seattle, where the Cascades ignited his passion for mountaineering. In 1939, as a high-school sophomore, he read in the...

Ski Area Promoter, Marketing Exec

Buzz Bainbridge
Passing Date: January 11, 2015

Alexander “Buzz” Bainbridge passed away in his sleep Sunday morning, Jan. 11, 2015 at the age of 93. Buzz grew up in Minneapolis, where he was a high school skiing champion, then captain of the University of Minnesota Ski Team and Central U.S. Intercollegiate Slalom Champion. During World War II he...

Biathlete, Resort Founder

John Burritt
Passing Date: January 7, 2015

John Ray Burritt, Sr., 81, died peacefully at his home on January 7, 2015. He was born in Cedaredge, Colorado into a pioneering farming family on Redlands Mesa, where he learned to shoot and hunt. He graduated from Hotchkiss  High School in 1952, then completed his college education at Western...

Tahoe Skiing Pioneer

Fraser West
Passing Date: January 2, 2015

Fraser “Poke” West died January 2, 2015, at age 96. Born March 1, 1918, Fraser West grew up in Reno, and passed up an appointment to West Point to focus on agriculture, skiing and rodeo roping. He enrolled at the University of Nevada as an Agriculture and Animal Husbandry major, while competing in...