STORY AND PHOTOS BY KAREN BOSSICK
If Dr. Stephen Pauley had his way, the Western carriage ferrying him through Ketchum on Saturday would have magically transformed into a spaceship at the end of the parade route.
And it would have carried him to the International Space Station.
The grand marshal of the 60th annual Big Hitch Parade might have his feet on the ground but his heart is in the skies.
The night skies, to be specific.
The retired ear, nose and throat surgeon was honored for his ongoing efforts to transform Ketchum and Sun Valley into Dark Sky communities and Central Idaho into a Dark Sky Reserve during a Grand Marshal reception this weekend at Ketchum’s Memory Park.
The stars in were in alignment this year for Pauley’s selection as grand marshal, said Ketchum Mayor Nina Jonas.
“Earlier this year we started working on international dark sky reserve, which involves having dark sky ordinances, then strengthening them. And, of course, the first person we turned to was Dr. Dark,” she said. “He recognized the beautiful night skies we have here and began advocating to preserve what we have before there were too many lights. With the eclipse taking place the week before Wagon Days, it was only fitting that he should be marshal.”
Pauley clambered up on the stage in cowboy hat and boots longtime friend Hugh Blue had outfitted him with at the Boot Barn in Twin Falls.
He talked about how he was learning to walk in the boots and practicing his cowboy wave. And he told of his surprise at being selected grand marshal.
“I remember was one year when the mules pulling the ore wagons were set to turn right and a couple decided to go left, instead. I didn’t think they could pull it off, but they did.”
But he also told the crowd gathered around the gazebo that “it took all of you” to get the dark sky ordinances passed. And that, while it’s a long process, it’s the right thing to do given the spectacular starscapes that residents of Sun Valley are exposed to almost nightly.
“We wouldn’t have had that dark sky if we allowed lights to creep up one light at a time,” he said. “The night sky definitely is a quality of life issue. If you can look up and see the stars on winter nights when the Milky Way is in full bloom—there’s nothing like that.”
It was a sailing voyage in 1977, rather than a trip through Ketchum in a carriage, that turned Pauley on to the night skies. He set sail from California to Hawaii with his wife and sons—12-year-old Scott and 10-year-old Clarke—in hopes of finding Hawaii.
He navigated by the night sky, taking measurements with a sexton while Clarke kept time.
“There were some tense days towards the end when we were supposed to have arrived in Hawaii but hadn’t,” recalled Clark. “The next stop would have been Tahiti or Japan.”
“I thought I had a backup plan, following jet contrails to Honolulu,” added Stephen Pauley. “But some of those could have been going to Japan.”
As they looked up from their boat, the four Pauleys noticed how much more dramatic the night sky was out in the middle of the Pacific Ocean than it was in California where the stars were obscured by the glow of city lights.
“What stuck with me is that you can always find north if you find the big dipper,” said Clarke, who lives in Irvine, Calif., where he creates renewable energy from food and other sources..
The Pauley family first set eyes on Idaho during a whitewater raft trip on the Middle Fork of the Salmon River that they took with Kathleen and Hugh Blue and Joann Boswell. And they noticed that the night sky here was even more dramatic than they’d found during their sailing adventure.
They continued to visit Sun Valley as Hugh Blue developed Elkhorn, eventually building a home in Elkhorn between 1982 and 1984. They moved to Sun Valley fulltime in 1991 when they had had it with Orange County and its traffic.
Linda Pauley—Clarke’s wife—said she can still remember when Dr. Dark introduced her to the mysteries of the universe via the night sky.
“The first thing he showed me was Orion’s Belt,” she said. “The difference between what you see here and what you see in California is the reason you want to protect it. It’s so great to have somebody so authentic, so passionate, about something so magnificent.”
Marilyn Pauley, also known as Mrs. Dark, attributed the genesis of that sailboat trip to an adventuresome spirit that her husband has in his DNA.
“His great grandmother arrived in Boise in May of 1867, coming over the Oregon Trail—you can still see the Bilicke general store she and her husband had on Main Street in Old Boise. And, eventually, they moved to California, then to Tombstone, Ariz., where they built the first hotel. When the gunfight at the O.K. Corral took place, they dragged the wounded into the hotel lobby. It’s the adventuresome spirit that his great-grandmother had that made all the rest possible.”