Categories

UMC Links

2010 Ski Affair to Honor National Ski Champions


Ski Affair will celebrate its 20th anniversary honoring national collegiate, World Cup, Olympic and Paralympic skiers who will receive the coveted History-Maker Awards, recognizing athletes who have contributed to the advancement of winter sports in the Intermountain Region.

The 2010 Ski Affair awards program will take place Wednesday, Oct. 27 at 6 p.m. at Little America in downtown Salt Lake City. The event is open to the public by reservation, $80 per person or $1,300 for sponsored table of 10. Reservations must be made by Oct. 20 (www.skiarchives.org or 801-581-3421). The evening’s festivities include a social hour, silent auction, a buffet dinner and awards program.

All proceeds benefit the University of Utah J. Willard Marriott Library‘s Ski Archives whose missions is to collect, preserve and catalogue ski and snowboard-related items of historical significance.

The ten honorees include:

  • Shannon Bahrke, Salt Lake City, Olympic Winter Games, women’s moguls, bronze medal;
  • Brett Camerota, Park City, Olympic Winter Games, Nordic combined, gold medal;
  • Billy Demong, Park City, Olympic Winter Games, Nordic combined, gold medal;
  • Julia Mancuso, Park City, Olympic Winter Games, women’s downhill, silver medal; women’s Super Combined, silver medal;
  • Jeret “Speedy” Peterson, Boise, ID, Olympic Winter Games, men’s aerials, silver medal;
  • Danelle and Rob Umstead, Park City, Paralympic Winter Games, women’s visually impaired, downhill, bronze medal; super combined bronze medal;
  • Stephani Victor, Park City, Paralympic Winter Games, women’s slalom sit, silver medal; giant slalom sit, silver medal; super combined, gold medal;
  • Andrew Weibrecht, Park City, Olympic Winter Games, super G, bronze medal;
  • Bryon Wilson, Butte, MT, Olympic Winter Games, men’s moguls, bronze medal.

Also honored will be Salt Lake City native Jim Gaddis who will receive the S.J. Quinney Award for his significant contributions to the development of skiing in the region.

In the late 1950s, Gaddis was a multi-year junior national champion and later dominated the national racing circuits, winning the NCAA combined title, the U.S. Giant Slalom Championships and the Snow Cup. He garnered NCAA All-American honors in 1960 and 1962 while competing for the University of Utah where he was team captain for three years. Later he became a prominent ski coach and founded one of Utah‘s first racing programs for the development of junior racers, the Gaddis Training Organization (GTO). He was inducted into the Utah Sports Hall of Fame and the University of Utah Crimson Club Sports Hall of Fame in 1989 and the Intermountain Ski Hall of Fame in 2005.

The Quinney Award is named in honor of the late S. Joseph Quinney, prominent Utah lawyer, businessman, state legislator, ski visionary and founder of Alta Ski Area, the first in Utah to offer lift-served skiing in 1938.

Since its inception in 1989, the Ski Archives have grown to become one of the largest repositories of ski history in the country. Its files include special collections, files, thousands of photos, film, scrapbooks and documents from area ski resorts, prominent ski families, individuals, the U.S. Ski and Snowboard Association and the Salt Lake Organizing Committee for the Olympic Winter Games of 2002 (SLOC).