STORY AND PHOTOS BY KAREN BOSSICK

April MacLeod has seen a fair chunk of Hailey history from the double-decker wooden deck that her husband Bob built off their 1927 home near Buttercup Road.

And she’s had a hand in a lot of that history, having worked and volunteered for an array of organizations from the Blaine County Recreation District to the Crisis Hotline, from the board of the Hailey Public Library to the Blaine County Fair Board.

MacLeod will be honored for her contributions to Hailey and the Wood River Valley on June 10 when she is inducted into the Blaine County Heritage Court, along with Faye Hatch Barker, JoAnn Levy and Vonnie Olsen. The coronation ceremony, which will feature entertainment and refreshments, will be held at 3 p.m. at The Liberty Theatre in Hailey.

“April’s one of the quiet strengths of our community—she does so much people are not aware of. And she loves our valley and takes pride in the in the things that get done,” said Hailey Public Library Director LeAnn Gelskey, who with her husband Brad grew up playing with the MacLeod boys—Tyler, now a firefighter,  and Brandon, an executive chef near Seattle.

Mile-high Hailey seems far removed from the bayous of Monroe, La., where MacLeod was born. But she met Bob MacLeod, a chief engineer with the Merchant Marines, on a blind date. And the two, who were married in 1977, fell in love with Sun Valley because they could ski here without getting “sopping wet” as they did skiing near their home in Seattle.

They decided to try the area out for a year, living in a farmhouse that Bob had brought with a college buddy.

“The first year I was miserable because I didn’t know anyone,” said MacLeod, whose  husband was often away for three months at a time. “Hailey was small then—maybe a thousand people. And we had no neighbors then. I finally joined a bowling league and I grew to love going down by the river before there were homes there and fishing for a couple hours. Now, 37 years later, voila!”

Growing up, MacLeod learned about drawing and gardening from her mother, who was both an accomplished artist and gardener who built her own greenhouse.

“She told me just to get my hands in the dirt,” MacLeod recalled.

And MacLeod has done plenty of that. A Master Gardener, she has transformed her city lot into an oasis of blue spruce trees towering over a small pond featuring Koi fish, lilies and water lettuce.

Lilacs and honeysuckle line the fence line, taking their place with a Beauty Bush from her grandmother’s garden and yellow roses that homesteaders brought from the Carolinas. Colorful art hanging on the exterior of the house augments the color provided by window flowers and gurgling fountains.

And April has planted all sorts of plants in colored pots for a corner of her yard she calls “Calypso Corner.”

Her yard was on the Friends of the Hailey Public Library Garden Tour in 2016.

“I’ve served 23 years on the library board. When I started, it was located where The Attic thrift store is now. Now, we’re planning for its hundredth anniversary celebration next year,” she said. “We’re always thinking: How can we afford to squeeze another inch of books in there? It looks like it’s got a really open space, but it’s pretty crammed.”

MacLeod worked at Louie’s restaurant in Ketchum in the days when long lines of hungry vacationers and backpackers, dirt still smudged on their faces, lined up for family style dinners incorporating pizza, lasagna, salad and spaghetti.

“If you had been to Louie’s before, you were willing to wait two hours,” she noted. “It was like going o Grumpy’s, except a little fancier.”

MacLeod also helped out at the College of Southern Idaho when the Blaine County campus was short of staff and she served as program assistant for the Blaine County Recreation District from 2006 to 2010.

She taught the youngsters how to grow pumpkins, tomatoes and Cinderella squash in a 16-foot garden in back of the BCRD offices on the Community Campus.

“I loved the little kids,” she said.

MacLeod’s own penchant for putting up 300 quarts of Dragon’s Tongue green beans every year, along with green and purple-striped heirloom tomatoes and jellies and jams she cooked  on a little stove in the garage during the hot days of August led her to serve on the Blaine County Fair Board.

It started when she and her girlfriends stopped to have a beer at the Loading Chute in Carey after fishing at Little Wood Reservoir.

“Someone made a big deal about how people from up north weren’t involved with the county fair. And so all of us decided to enter the fair,” she said. “I won Best of Show in woodworking and blue ribbons for my jams and jellies and candies—it was so much fun.”

In 1989 MacLeod started volunteering for 24-to 48-hour stints with The Crisis Hotline, something she did for 20 years.

“It was in the days before cell phones so, if I was on call, I’d put my Princess phone on the windowsill so I could hear the phone ring outside,” she said.

“We’d deal with a lot of domestic situations since there were no Advocates or other resources in those days. And we’d help people find food since we didn’t have the Hunger Coalition then,” she recalled.

“Every once in awhile, we’d have someone threatening to kill themselves or others. It was usually about getting people through that first hour.”

Population growth has brought more diversity and a wider array of interests to the valley, MacLeod said.

“People are a little more open minded,” she said. “I like the opportunities we have today for entertainment and education. And I’m so pleased to see The Hunger Coalition and Hope Garden  for those who go through a hard spell or something.

“I’ve never felt fearful here.  “I love that you can walk forever and not see anybody. I love that you can walk out your door and be in Eden.”