STORY AND PHOTOS BY KAREN BOSSICK
Wendy and Alan Pesky were stunned as they saw the artwork Wood River Middle School science students had created as part of a classroom enrichment project in conjunction with the Sun Valley Center for the Arts.
The project meant to teach 240 students about threats to the local watershed, featured a waterfall made out of plastic bottles streaming from the school ceiling and turning into a river that ran down the hallway, interspersed with plants and wildlife that live in and along the river.
“If you had seen it in the Museum of Modern Art, you would have said, ‘Isn’t that special!’ And here it was in a middle school in the Wood River Valley,” said Alan Pesky who with Wendy was the founding sponsor of The Center’s Enrichment Program, which integrates art into core math, science and other curriculums.
“It was a creative way to take a subject pertinent to this valley and make it spectacular,” added Wendy Pesky. “Everyone learns differently, and the Sun Valley Center for the Arts offers another avenue to express themselves.”
The Sun Valley Center for the Arts honored the Peskys’ longstanding support of arts education Friday night at its 37th annual Wine Auction. The Peskys were not only named honorary chairs of the Wine Auction but The Center’s Executive Director Christine Davis-Jeffers and Katherine Rixon announced that scholarships given to further educators’ arts and humanities experience would henceforth be named in their honor.
The Center provides arts, music and theater education to 4,000 students in Blaine County with the money it raises each year from the Wine Auction, Vintner Dinners and its Vine & Dine. And its Scholarship Program has awarded more than $850,000 in the past 20 years to Blaine County students and educators for advanced study.
“Connecting math to art allows me to reach more kids and develop stronger relations with them,” said Glen Lindsley, the math teacher at Wood River high School.
This year’s Wine Auction featured 139 Silent Auction lots, including a fly fishing sojourn to Henrys Fork, and 30 Live Auction lots.
The live auction packages included an Argentinean adventure featuring everything from a tango show to net fishing, four nights in Music City Nashville with visits to various museums and musical venues, a trip to the Big Easy that will include a private catered dinner prepared by Emeril Lagasse and a trip on the world’s largest privately owned residential yacht.
This year’s Atkinsons’ lot featured a skyline of the Pioneer Mountains taken by Sun Valley photographer Josh Wells and spread across seven 6-liter bottles of wine. Hailey photographer Gerry Morrison contributed small inset photographs of Sun Valley wildflowers he’d taken in his native landscape yard, at Craters of the Moon, Dollar Mountain and other locations.
The lot raised $25,000.
The entire Wine Auction Gala raised more than a million dollars, said Davis-Jeffers, with the Nashville lot selling $24,000 four times.
Afterwards, the crowd was treated to a cabaret-style performance by Lady Rizo that was both "naughty and fantastic," according to Penny Coe.
Among those in audience was Bobbi Hunt and Gayle Sullivan, both of whom have been longtime aficionados of the wine auction, even though they hail from Tulsa, Okla. Forty years ago Hunt—a retired attorney--came to a legal conference at Sun Valley Resort and she knew immediately that she wanted to return. She did just that 18 years ago, buying a house in 1999.
“It’s the story you always hear,” she said. “In fact, I met a couple from Alaska tonight who came here to ski with no intention of buying a place and they did just that before they left. I fell in love with the people and nature around here, and I love that the Sun Valley Center for the Arts does so much work with kids.”
Wine Auction sponsors included Wells Fargo Private Bank, Sun Valley Resort, Cox Communications and Atkinsons’ Market.