Lives

Jean Saubert, Olympic medalist, USA

Jean Saubert
Passing Date: May 14, 2007

Olympic Medalist Jean Saubert BIGFORK, Mont. (May 15) - Two-time former Olympic medalist and six-time U.S. ski champion Jean Saubert died in 2007 of cancer. She was 65. Saubert, who grew up skiing in the Cascades mountain range in Oregon, where her father was a forest ranger, saw her first Olympic...

Richard Goetzman, USSA president

Dick Goetzman
Passing Date: April 3, 2007

Dick Goetzman, USSAand Hall of Fame president Dick Goetzman, for decades a board member of both the U.S. Ski Association and the U.S. National Ski Hall of Fame, died April 3, 2007 in Long Beach, Calif., after a long illness. He was 78. Dick served as president of the Far West Ski Association in...

Robert Nordhaus, 10th vet, New Mexico pioneer

Bob Nordhaus
Passing Date: February 22, 2007

Robert Nordhaus, 10th vet and New Mexico pioneer Robert Nordhaus, 97, who pioneered skiing in New Mexico’s Sandia Mountains and fought in the 10th Mountain Division, died Feb. 22, 2007 in Albuquerque. Bob was born in Las Vegas, N.M. and grew up in Albuquerque, where his father ran the Charles...

Erich Windisch, Vail

Erich Windisch
Passing Date: February 14, 2007

Jumper, Instructor and Artist Erich Windisch, 89, a longtime Vail, Colorado, ski instructor and artist, died in Vail on February 14, 2007. Windisch started skiing in his native Germany at the age of 3. For five years, he was a member of the German National Team in jumping and nordic combined,...

Walter Foeger, ski technique revolutionary

Walter Foeger
Passing Date: February 10, 2007

Walter Foeger Ski Teaching Trailblazer Walter Foeger, ski teacher and theoretician, died at age 90 on February 10, 2007 in Vienna, Austria. Born in Innsbruck in 1917, his family moved to Kitzbühel. where his mother found work as secretary of the tennis club at the foot of the Hahnenkamm. Young...

Ed and Doris Lachapelle, avalanche expert and writer

Dolores LaChapelle
Passing Date: January 21, 2007

Ed and Dolores LaChapelle, Backcountry Pioneers Ed LaChapelle, an avalanche expert known for his ground-breaking research in snow safety, and his former wife Dolores LaChapelle—ecologist, teacher, scholar, ski pioneer, and writer—lived lives of energy, curiosity, and example. Dolores died on...

President Gerald R. Ford, ski enthusiast

Jerry Ford
Passing Date: December 6, 2006

Athlete, Congressman, President, Skier and First Citizen of Vail President Gerald R. Ford, was born in Nebraska but grew up in Grand Rapids and worked his way through the University of Michigan. A high school football star, he was an All-American center on the Michigan team, which won the national...

Pachita Ochoa, Olympic slalom champ

Paquito Ochoa
Passing Date: November 6, 2006

1972 Olympic slalom champ  Francisco Fernandez “Paquito” Ochoa, 1972 Olympic slalom champion at Sapporo, died Nov. 6, 2006  after a long battle with cancer. He was 56. Ochoa, the only Spanish winter gold medalist, remained active in the Spanish Olympic movement, and his funeral, at his home town...

Robert Bunny Bass, ski boot pioneer

Bunny Bass
Passing Date: October 27, 2006

Key figure in ski boot history -- and a founder of Sugarloaf. Robert N. "Bunny" Bass, 89, died Friday, Oct. 27, 2006, in Falmouth Maine. Bunny Bass had a busy decade in the 1950s. He spent it running his family’s boot and shoe business, helping to launch Ski Industries America (SIA), and helping to...

Alexander Cushing, Squaw Valley founder

Alex Cushing
Passing Date: August 19, 2006

Squaw Valley founder was aggressive builder, promoter; brought 1960 Winter Games to California. Alexander C. Cushing, one of the founders of Squaw Valley and the man who brought the 1960 Winter Olympics to the resort, died of pneumonia on Aug. 19, 2006 at Sea Cove, his summer home in Newport, Rhode...