STORY AND PHOTOS BY KAREN BOSSICK
Mary Austin Crofts is no stranger to championing Sun Valley.
After all, she helped build the bike path between Ketchum and Bellevue and the Harriman Trail between SNRA and Galena Lodge while director of the Blaine County Recreation District.
Then she turned around and promoted the Trailing of the Sheep Festival, which has been touted as one of the nation’s finest festivals by numerous publications and organizations.
She’s no less effusive in her new role as executive director of The Chamber.
“You can go anywhere and see a beautiful spot but you won’t find the culture you find here on top of that. And there isn’t a better place more accepting of dogs. This is dog paradise,” said Crofts, who loves hitting the trails with her giant Lab Jake.
Crofts presided over one of her first Business After Hours networking events recently at Idaho Independent Bank in Ketchum.
She says she hopes to have more events in Ketchum to highlight Ketchum retailers, who lost a platform for touting new businesses, products and services when the Sun Valley/Ketchum Chamber was disbanded.
“But you have to recognize that The Chamber wouldn’t be here without the City of Hailey,” she added.
Crofts’ first order of business in her new role was applying for an Idaho Travel Council grant, which she said goes a long way to funding the local Chamber.
And she’s busy trying to meet the chamber’s 19 board members, not to mention its 360 members, while preparing for such upcoming events as Saturday’s Arborfest and the Fourth of July activities.
“This organization is doing a lot more than I ever realized. I’m a little underwater right now. But I’m from Minnesota so I’m used to that,” she said.
The task at hand, she said, is instilling the importance of buying local is in valley’s residents.
“We won’t have local businesses if we keep going to Twin Falls and Amazon. And, if we don’t have local businesses, we don’t have jobs.”
The Chamber will offer its Wake Up Hailey—a chance to network—from 9 to 10 a.m. Tuesday, May 8—at the Hailey Public Library. It will hold its next BAH from 5 to 7 p.m. Thursday, May 24, at the Wood River Land Trust.