STORY AND PHOTOS BY KAREN BOSSICK

Her license plate says “Aloha O.”

And JoAnn Levy has always striven to impart the aloha spirit to Sun Valley—her paradise on earth.

“ ‘Aloha’ is a way of thinking and a way of being,” said the Hawaiian native. “I practice aloha. I work at  being friendly and making people happy.”

Levy’s efforts to do her part to create a Sun Valley paradise have prompted her to take on a variety of tasks from serving as mayor of Sun Valley to being a faithful donor of furniture, clothes and books to the Gold Mine thrift store.

And that got her named to the Blaine County Heritage Court, which honors women who have contributed to the fabric of the Wood River Valley.

Levy will be inducted in the court during a ceremony capped by entertainment and refreshments at 3 p.m. today—Sunday, June 10—at The Liberty Theatre. Joining her will be Faye Hatch Barker, April MacLeod and Vonnie Olsen.

Levy grew up in Oahu where her father was in the Navy.

But she yearned to know more of her mother’s Scandinavian heritage. And, so, in 1963 the 23-year-old Aloha girl hopped the Snowball Express in Los Angeles with a ticket provided by the Union Pacific Railroad, which owned Sun Valley Resort at that time.

“I wanted to learn to ski because that’s what Scandinavians do,” she said. “And all the Hawaiians I knew who skied came to Sun Valley because the Austrian ski school was so famous.”

Levy worked the 3 to 11 shift at the Sun Valley Inn’s soda fountain, which was the go-to place for the after-dinner crowd.

“It was hard work because the ice cream was so hard. But I was famous for making really good banana splits,” she said “The night the Beatles were on TV no one showed up at the soda shop so I put up the ‘Closed’ sign and ran around the corner to see them.”

Levy’s schedule enabled her to ski all day long. Having learned balance on a surf board, Levy learned to ski on Dollar Mountain and within a week was skiing Baldy in her long black Head skis and leather boots.

Skiing remains a passion of hers all these years later. You can count on her being among the first in the lift line on opening day, standing in her K2 skis. And you can set a watch by her appearance in the lift line at 9 each morning during the season, although she’s beginning to spend more time on Dollar Mountain with her three grandchildren ages 4, 6 and 7.

Levy taught skiing to little tykes like them for several years.

“I remember one little girl with red hair who didn’t want to ski so I told her she could watch the others put on their skis and shuffle around to get an idea what it was like. Pretty soon, a lady with an elegant shiny silver Lemay jacket came down wanting to see her ski. It turned out to be President Kennedy’s sister Jean Lawford, and Ski School Director Sigi (Engl) was furious that I couldn’t yet show her daughter skiing. Finally, I got her up on skis.”

Like so many in the valley, Levy came for one winter but had so much fun she soon became a permanent fixture.

She worked as the hot bun gal in the Lodge Dining Room, serving pecan rolls, croissants and doughnuts from a tray hanging from a strap around her neck. At dinner she served dinner rolls and French bread to celebrities and other diners who were dressed to the hilt.

“I noticed that the waitresses who had nice foreign accents were getting a lot of tips so I tried saying, ‘Ja.’ One table of guests asked me where I was from and I replied Oslo. They started talking in Norwegian and I knew a few words, having studied a semester of international relations at an Oslo university. But I told them, ‘In this country I’m only speaking English.’ ”

Other jobs followed. She served as lifeguard at the Lodge pool, took photos of skiers for Magic Photography and oversaw The Place, a center for teens to hang out and play pool, pinball and watch TV, Come Christmas she organized a teen dance for them, with Frank Sinatra records for them to dance to.

She worked at a property management company and sold real estate back in the day, she noted, when there weren’t so many realtors. And she put her Master of Education degree to work as a substitute teacher when the school was located where Atkinsons’ Market is today.

“One of my students was Mariel Hemingway and she was so cute in her little jumper,” she recalled.

JoAnn met her husband-to-be Buck Levy while working as secretary for the Sun Valley Ski Education Foundation in its early days. Buck, a doctor, had become an Olympic Nordic ski racer and jumper while attending Western State Colorado University, even though he grew up in Louisiana.

It was he who introduced cross country skiing to Sun Valley in 1972, in hopes of getting the fledgling SVSEF to sponsor a Nordic racing team.

“He said Sun Valley would be an ideal place for cross country skiing, but none of the stores had cross country ski equipment then. So he had his teammates from the 1956 Olympics in Cortina, Italy, bring some equipment and they stomped out a track at the high school. And people loved it. Even women who did not care for downhill skiing loved it because they could go along at their own pace without fear of heights.”

Bob Rosso, who owns The Elephant’s Perch, saw the potential and ordered equipment. And JoAnn added a pair of wooden Nordic skis to her arsenal of skis, learning how to burn syrupy pine tar on the bottom. Pretty soon, she was skiing downhill and cross country every day.

She readily entered all kind of races, including one from the top of Galena Summit to the flats where partners switched to tandem skis and proceeded to Busterback Ranch. And she took part in the first Boulder Mountain Tour when it began in 1973 as the Sawtooth Mountain Marathon.

“When they began setting up aid stations along the way, one station served oysters on the half shell,” she recalled.  

JoAnn raced in 41 straight BMTs, often winning her age class. Most of the races are a blur because they were “perfect, all alike.” But she’ll never forget the 2008 race when her eyelids froze so she couldn’t blink and her fingers almost became frostbitten.

“I was determined to finish, and I survived a real adventure,” she said.

Levy missed her first BMT last year after her son Dan, his wife Dream and their children escaped the rat race in Los Angeles to move in with the Levys.

“I didn’t have enough time to train because I was busy helping to homeschool my grandkids. Maybe next year,” she said.

After she and Buck became married in 1973, JoAnn took up many of Buck’s favorite sports, including fly fishing and duck hunting.

We married in October in Carmel on the first day of duck season. Our plane hit a duck as we flew to Boise so Buck said he got his duck after all,” she recounted. “Now I’d rather feed birds than shoot them.”

JoAnn also became a marathon runner, although her “four and a half” marathons never came closing to matching the 37 marathons Buck ran from 1978- to 1984 in places like Pikes Peak, Colo., and Boston..

When she wasn’t recreating, she volunteered for the hospital auxiliary, the Sun Valley Writers Conference where she particularly enjoyed the Irish author Frank McCourt, and the Sun Valley Center for the Arts, where she served as docent for several exhibits and helped put on wild game dinners.

She served as president of the PTA at Hemingway and the Community School. And she published a book of cartoons titled “It Happens in Sun Valley,” illustrated by her father Norman.

“I did a movie for Warren Miller—he took me to France to ski in one of his early shorts called ‘Skier a Go Go’ following a tryout on Baldy. And I was an extra in the 1965 movie “Ski Party” that Frankie Avalon made in Sun Valley. You can still see it sometimes on TV. It’s a lot of fun.”

Levy served on Ketchum City Council, advocating for one of Ketchum’s streets to be named Corrock in honor of Susie Corrock’s 1972 Olympic stint. When she and Buck moved to Sun Valley, she served on Sun Valley’s Planning and Zoning Commission and City Council before undertaking one 4-year term as mayor beginning in 1994.

“I loved to marry people on top of Baldy, at Trail Creek Cabin, by the river,” she said. “I’d always send them a card from Sun Valley on their first anniversary to remind them of their special time in Sun Valley.”

Today the Levy home is filled with signs of their grandchildren’s presence. Little clay figures that the grandchildren made the day before sit on the island of the country kitchen where JoAnn has cooked scads of recipes from her many cookbooks representing every cuisine around the world.

Their artwork is everywhere, even interspersed among Buck’s extensive array of hot sauces from Louisiana.  And the days are chockfull of field trips to such destinations as the fire station.

“I live in the perfect place with friendly people and a great lifestyle with an emphasis on nature and the outdoors,” she said. “And I am loving sharing it with the grandchildren.”