Colorado Ski & Snowboard Museum and Hall of Fame News

The Colorado Ski & Snowboard Hall of Fame is pleased to announce the election of Bill Bergman, Toby Dawson, Jerry Gart, Tom Jankovsky, John Meyer, Paul Testwuide and Ralph Walton into the Hall of Fame class of 2012. They will join a prestigious group of Hall of Fame athletes and visionaries who have made significant contributions to the Colorado ski industry when they are formally inducted during the 36^th annual Colorado Ski & Snowboard Hall of Fame Induction Gala in October.

Bill Bergman

Max Dercum revealed “Dercum’s Dream,” his vision of creating and developing Keystone, to Iowa attorney Bill Bergman. Dercum had the vision but Bergman possessed the business savvy skills to turn it into reality. He is credited as the individual who transformed skiing into a corporate enterprise. Bergman was able to expand the resort by designing environmentally friendly trails and installing snowmaking capabilities .Bergman laid the groundwork for standard practices in leading resorts that are still used today. 

Adopted from an orphanage in South Korea by Vail ski instructors, Toby "Awesome" Dawson's time on the slopes led to 7 years on the US Ski Team, winning 7 World Cup titles, 17 podium finishes and he became the 2006 Olympic bronze medalist in freestyle skiing. He helped with South Korea's winning bid for the 2018 Winter Olympic Games and is now the South Korean National Ski Team Coach.

The 1976 Marketing Director for Ski Industries of America, Jerry Gart opened 70 Gart Brother's Sporting Goods, famous for SNIGRAB and brought affordable ski equipment to Colorado residents; his ski carpet inside the store gave guests the experience of skiing. He established Denver/Post Gart Bros. Ski School and founded the Colorado Ski Country USA Ski Lift Program.

Tom has worked 25-years as the General Manager of Sunlight Mountain Resort and 24-years on the Board of Trustees for Colorado Ski Country USA. He championed the Colorado Gems and the 5th Grade Passport Program, created the successful Glenwood Springs marketing campaign: Ski, Swim and Stay, which has increased overnight stays and tourism.

After John Meyer moved to Denver in 1981, he began his 25-year career as the American ski writer for the Denver Post and the Rocky Mountain News. He has written for six Winter Olympic Games, covered four FIS Alpine Ski World Championships and 100 FIS World Cup events. John has been recognized as "America's Ski Writer" and is a dean of Olympic journalists in America.

In 1963, Paul came to Vail as a trail crew member and went on to become Vail Ski Patrol Director and ultimately became Vail's Chief Operating Officer. He secured water rights for snowmaking, which became a model for the rest of the Colorado ski industry to follow. He managed sustainable development of Blue Sky Basin and the rebuild of Two Elks after the ELF arson fires.

In 1970, Ralph purchased then-bankrupt Crested Butte Mountain Resort. In three decades, he pioneered non-stop jet service to the ski area, developed a base village and subsequent subdivisions. He was on the BOD for Colorado Ski Country USA and received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the NSAA..

For more information, please visit the Colorado Ski & Snowboard Museum & Hall of Fame website at www.skimuseum.net.

 

The Colorado Ski & Snowboard Hall of Fame is pleased to announce the election of Bill Bergman, Toby Dawson, Jerry Gart, Tom Jankovsky, John Meyer, Paul Testwuide and Ralph Walton into the Hall of Fame class of 2012. They will join a prestigious group of Hall of Fame athletes and visionaries who have made significant contributions to the Colorado ski industry when they are formally inducted during the 36^th annual Colorado Ski & Snowboard Hall of Fame Induction Gala in October.

Max Dercum revealed “Dercum’s Dream,” his vision of creating and developing Keystone, to Iowa attorney Bill Bergman. Dercum had the vision but Bergman possessed the business savvy skills to turn it into reality. He is credited as the individual who transformed skiing into a corporate enterprise. Bergman was able to expand the resort by designing environmentally friendly trails and installing snowmaking capabilities .Bergman laid the groundwork for standard practices in leading resorts that are still used today.

Adopted from an orphanage in South Korea by Vail ski instructors, Toby "Awesome" Dawson's time on the slopes led to 7 years on the US Ski Team, winning 7 World Cup titles, 17 podium finishes and he became the 2006 Olympic bronze medalist in freestyle skiing. He helped with South Korea's winning bid for the 2018 Winter Olympic Games and is now the South Korean National Ski Team Coach.

The 1976 Marketing Director for Ski Industries of America, Jerry Gart opened 70 Gart Brother's Sporting Goods, famous for SNIGRAB and brought affordable ski equipment to Colorado residents; his ski carpet inside the store gave guests the experience of skiing. He established Denver/Post Gart Bros. Ski School and founded the Colorado Ski Country USA Ski Lift Program.

Tom has worked 25-years as the General Manager of Sunlight Mountain Resort and 24-years on the Board of Trustees for Colorado Ski Country USA. He championed the Colorado Gems and the 5th Grade Passport Program, created the successful Glenwood Springs marketing campaign: Ski, Swim and Stay, which has increased overnight stays and tourism.

After John Meyer moved to Denver in 1981, he began his 25-year career as the American ski writer for the Denver Post and the Rocky Mountain News. He has written for six Winter Olympic Games, covered four FIS Alpine Ski World Championships and 100 FIS World Cup events. John has been recognized as "America's Ski Writer" and is a dean of Olympic journalists in America.

In 1963, Paul came to Vail as a trail crew member and went on to become Vail Ski Patrol Director and ultimately became Vail's Chief Operating Officer. He secured water rights for snowmaking, which became a model for the rest of the Colorado ski industry to follow. He managed sustainable development of Blue Sky Basin and the rebuild of Two Elks after the ELF arson fires.

In 1970, Ralph purchased then-bankrupt Crested Butte Mountain Resort. In three decades, he pioneered non-stop jet service to the ski area, developed a base village and subsequent subdivisions. He was on the BOD for Colorado Ski Country USA and received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the NSAA..

 

The Hall of Fame Induction Gala will be held on Friday, October 26, 2012. Please call the museum at 970-476-1876 to have your name included on the invitation list. Pplease visit the Colorado Ski & Snowboard Museum & Hall of Fame website at www.skimuseum.net.

 

Frank Bulkley II helped more kids go skiing than just about anyone out there.

Bulkley, the founder of Denver's venerable Eskimo Ski Club and the famed Ski Train, ferried tens of thousands of kids — and then their kids — between Denver and Winter Park every Saturday for several decades.

"We tried recently to calculate how many kids Frank had introduced to skiing, and we got close to half a million. And I think that's a true number," said Jerry Groswold, the retired 26-year captain of Winter Park Resort, who worked on Bulkley's ski train as a chaperone in the late 1950s, when the Eskimo Ski Club ushered upward of 1,600 kids from Denver to Winter Park and back. "I've found people all over the country who grew up in Denver and learned to ski through the Eskimo Club."

Bulkley, who died last week at 97, lived a rich life, introducing generations to the thrills of skiing.

He learned to ski at Berthoud Pass in 1935, chartering a bus from Denver to bring his friends and six siblings to the mountaintop ski area. After scouting terrain for Denver's manager of parks, George Cranmer, Bulkley helped clear trails for the city-owned Winter Park ski area. When Winter Park opened in the 1939-40 season, Bulkley ran the ski school and ski shop. In those first years at Winter Park, Bulkley started using the Denver & Salt Lake Railroad to bring kids from Denver on Saturdays. By World War II, the Saturday "Frank Bulkley Ski Group" was 300 strong.

After teaching skiing and rock climbing to the skiing soldiers of the 10th Mountain Division and serving as first lieutenant with the 42nd Infantry in Europe, Bulkley returned to Winter Park and convinced the then Denver & Rio Grande Railroad to fire up the Ski Train again. He opened up the Eskimo Ski Shop in Denver. From 1946 to the early 1970s, Bulkley missed only one Saturday marshaling kids along the Ski Train — and that was the day in 1949 he married his sweetheart, Nancy Van Stone .

Frank Bulkley III joined his father on the Ski Train in 1959 at age 7, rising at 3:30 a.m. every Saturday to prepare the train's coaches for the Eskimo Club skiers, who were separated into train cars by age. While Bulkley certainly harbored an affection for the mountains and skiing, he was driven to stir a sense of independence in the club's 8- to 17-year-olds.

"The thing he said he really was trying to do is to get kids to do things on their own and handle problems on their own and feel comfortable doing things independently," said Bulkley's son, who still runs the Eskimo Ski Shop, now in Centennial.

At its peak, the Ski Train packed 20 coaches with as many as 1,600 kids, each sporting either green, blue, black or the coveted, race-ready rainbow patches on their jackets, reflecting their skiing prowess. After each ski day, Bulkley would traverse the train's coaches, handing out an array of colored ribbons to skiers who had passed certain milestones.

"He knew exactly what color ribbon to give each kid, and he'd call every one of the kids by their name," Groswold said. "He was amazing."

"They wouldn't think he knew their name, but he always surprised them," said daughter Anne Bulkley. "He loved kids so much."

Bulkley is survived by his wife, Nancy, and their four children, Anne, Frank, Mary Goodin and Laura Dalgarno; six grandchildren; three great-grandchildren; and two sisters, Elizabeth Rue and Louise Garland.