Lives

Bob Smith, ski goggle inventor

Bob Smith
Passing Date: April 18, 2012

Bob Smith, the California orthodontist who invented the double-lens powder goggle, died in Palm Desert on April 18, 2012, from complications following surgery to implant a heart pacemaker. He was 78. Robert Earl Smith grew up in San Carlos, Calif. and attended Stanford and the San Francisco College...

Chris Gribbin, Quebec ski instruction pioneer

Chris Gribbin
Passing Date: March 10, 2012

Chris Gribbin, 90, died in March, 2012. In 1943, he was a founding member of the Ski Instructors Alliance of Canada and its first paid employee, running the office and training programs from 1949 to 1962. An English instructor at the Universityof Montreal, Chris also coached its ski team through...

Jill Kinmont Boothe, The Other Side of the Mountain

Jill Kinmont Boothe
Passing Date: February 9, 2012

If you’ve read the book or seen the film The Other Side of the Mountain, you know about California teenaged ski racer, Jill Kinmont, who suffered a catastrophic injury in a high-speed giant slalom at Alta, Utah, which left her in a wheelchair for the rest of her life. Jill Kinmont Boothe died Feb...

Roger Buchika, racer and ski shop owner

Roger Buchika
Passing Date: December 18, 2011

Roger Buchika, 67, of Atkinson, N.H., died peacefully on Sunday, December 18, 2011. Roger was born in Haverhill October 31,1944, attended Haverhill schools, and graduated from Haverhill High School in 1962. Under the tutelage of Olympic skier Brooks Dodge, Roger earned the National Junior Slalom...

Warren Hellman, US Ski Team leader, Stratton, Sugar Bowl.

Warren Hellman
Passing Date: December 18, 2011

(US Ski Team relase, Dec. 20) – The U.S. Ski Team is mourning the loss of Warren Hellman, one of its former leaders and visionaries. Hellman, who passed away Sunday, Dec. 18, 2011 at the age of 77, was a pivotal leader of the Team during the early stages of its rise to greatness in the late ’70s...

Bob Ferguson, Ski Market founder

Bob Ferguson
Passing Date: December 11, 2011

Robert L. Ferguson of Osterville, Mass. passed away peacefully with his family beside him on Dec. 11, 2011 from complications of pneumonia. Bob was born in Jamestown, N.D. on Dec. 7, 1932, son of the late Clifford and Gertrude (May) Ferguson. He was raised in Minneapolis and graduated from the...

Joy Lucas, Northwest ski instructor

Joy Piles Lucas
Passing Date: November 25, 2011

Joy Piles “Lucky” Lucas, 94, died inSpokane,Wash., in February, 2011. Raised by Forest Service parents at the Barlow Pass Ranger Station, she began skiing in 1938 and soon married Jim Lucas. Beginning in 1940, the couple ran the Deer Park Ski Lodge and ski school in the Olympic Range. In 1941, Joy...

Yvan Pierre Taché, instructor

Yvan Pierre Tache
Passing Date: October 11, 2011

Yvan Pierre Taché passed away peacefully, at his home in Carbondale, Colorado, on October 11th, 2011 surrounded by his loving wife and five children. He was 86 years old. Born April 16th, 1925, in the village of St. Jovite, in Quebec’s Laurentian Mountains, with nearby Mont Tremblant rising into...

Ed Pauls, NordicTrack inventor

Ed Pauls
Passing Date: October 9, 2011

Ed Pauls, 80, inventor of the NordicTrack exercise machine and a member of the Rosemount ski boot engineering team, died Oct. 9 at his home in Montrose, Colo. Edward Arthur Pauls was born on Aug. 28, 1931, in Sheboygan, Wis., and grew up on a dairy farm near Wausau. He graduated from the University...

Max Dercum, Colorado A-Basin and Keystone co-founder

Max Dercum
Passing Date: September 30, 2011

BY CADDIE NATH SUMMIT DAILY NEWS, Oct 1 – Co-founder of two of Summit County’s four ski resorts and local legend Max Dercum died Friday, Sept. 30, 2011 just days shy of his 99th birthday. Dercum passed away at a retirement home in Evergreen, where he lived, Jefferson County coroners confirmed. It...