STORY AND PHOTO BY KAREN BOSSICK

A community Celebration of Life for Mary Austin Crofts will be held at 6 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 5, at the Blaine County Recreation Aquatic Center in Hailey.

Light refreshments, including Perry’s cookies now being baked by Toni’s ice cream and donations provided by Atkinsons’ Markets, will be served.

Crofts championed the construction of the pool during her 20-year career as director of the Blaine County Recreation District. She also oversaw the building of many other amenities in the Wood River Valley, including the 22-mile Wood River Trail bike path and the Harriman Trail between SNRA and Galena Lodge.

Crofts, who would have turned 74 today, created a coffee table book “Wood River Trail System. Legacy of a Community Treasure,” which described the evolution of the Wood River Trail. Some of her friends—Carol Waller, Sarah Michael, Judy Stoltzfus, Evelyn Phillips and Jenny Busdon—banded together to get it published.

The 80-plus page book will be available at the Celebration of Life for a donation of $100, with the donations going to the maintenance of the trail system.

“It’s a beautiful book, full of fabulous photographs and history,” said Busdon. “It really shows all the things she and Bob Rosso and Butch Harper had to do to get it done. Now, of course, it’s unimaginable that we wouldn’t have the bike path connecting our small towns. I’m thinking it could never have been achieved in our present day of development and property rights.”