STORY AND PHOTOS BY KAREN BOSSICK

Stephen Holding smiled as he recounted how his first experience on red wooden skis at Park West ski area ended so badly that he vowed he would never ski again.

Then my parents bought a ski resort and told me that, if they were going to buy a ski resort, I would have to learn to ski, he told a turn-away crowd at The Community Library’s lecture hall. “I said, ‘No thanks!’”

But Earl and Carol Holding enrolled their son in lessons, and he wound up with Juli Jones Webb, a petite fireball of a ski instructor with a shock of pitch-black hair.

Heidi Scott Bynum and Craig Cooper enjoyed a moment with well-wishers following the ceremony at the Wood River Museum of History + Culture.

“I said, ‘I’m not skiing.’ She said, ‘Oh yes you are.’ ”

In the famously low snow year of 1976-77, Holding and Jones spent their first few days sidestepping up Lower Warm Springs before skiing down.

“Finally, we got to ride up the lift,” Holding said. “And after skiing with Julie, I absolutely loved skiing.”

Holding introduced Jones as one of four new inductees to the Sun Valley Winter Sports Hall of Fame during a ceremony.

George “Crunchy” Gund IV shows off the plaque memorializing his father.

Other inductees were Janet Kellam, who helped pioneer avalanche forecasting in the Sun Valley and Stanley area; Ed “Scotty” Scott, who revolutionized skiing with lightweight, durable ski poles, and George Gund III, who instigated Sun Valley’s indoor ice rink and the Sun Valley Suns hockey team.

It was not a coincidence, Holding said, that Jones started teaching skiing at Sun Valley in 1965—“that’s the year I was born.” She was the fifth female instructor in a ski school that boasted 60 men. And she made 75 cents an hour while required to work seven days a week.

“It’s amazing she stayed!” said Holding.

Now in her 61st season of teaching, Webb is Sun Valley Resort’s longest tenured employee. She has taught 600,000 adults and children to ski, her clients including Ethel Kennedy, Jane Fonda, Lily Tomlin, Mariel Hemingway and Herb Alpert.

Janet Kellam has broken glass ceilings for women in a variety of areas, including documentary adventure filmmaking.

She employed subterfuge to become the first female to ski in Sun Valley’s Christmas Eve Torchlight Parade over the objections of Sigi Engl, who headed up the ski school at that time. She fought for equal pay and access to private lessons for women. She got the green carpet installed on Dollar Mountain and she founded the Ambassadors program, now Guest Services, aka the Yellow Jackets.

“I appreciate what she’s done for the community, what she’s done for Sun Valley, what she’s done for the ski school, what she did for me,” said Holding.

Given her turn at the podium, Webb recounted how she was born in Canada but moved to the Seattle area as a child. When relatives from England wanted to see snow, her father took them to Snoqualmie Pass where they saw other kids skiing.

“My brothers said, ‘If we had skis, we could do what those kids are doing,’ ” she said.

Juli Jones Webb told of meeting her husband Doug Webb in the bathroom at Sun Valley when he lived in the Roundhouse and skied the mountain cleaning bathrooms.

The family began making the weekly trek to Snoqualmie--Julie so excited that she put on her rope tow hook the moment she got in the car.

She met her future husband Doug Webb, in the bathroom at Sun Valley when he was doing bowl patrol.

He was cute, she said but a bit curious as he dressed in ratty jeans, skied on skis that were different lengths and used ski poles of different lengths. Now they have four grandchildren.

Tina Cole, a longtime member of Friends of the Sawtooth Avalanche Center, introduced Janet Kellam, who came to Ketchum at 19 as a Middlebury College student serving an internship with a fish biologist.

“She jumped at the opportunity and never looked back. She realized, ‘I belonged in Idaho,’ ” Cole said.

Kellam went on to become the first woman in the United States to earn a license as a lead guide. She was also the first to serve as director of the Forest Service Avalanche Center  when she took reins of the Sawtooth Avalanche Center. And she was the first woman to serve as president of the American Avalanche Association.

She even had a brief gig as the Philip Morris girl passing out swag on Sun Valley’s Warm Springs.

She created a culture of avalanche awareness, even educating landscapers about the risks of working in urban avalanche interface—an idea that was ahead of its time. And she started the Friends of the Sawtooth Avalanche Center, which now raises more than half of the avalanche center’s budget to hire four forecasters for an area stretching from the Smoky Mountains near Fairfield to the mountains surrounding Stanley.

“She has the ability to engage everybody at their level,” said Cole.

Kellam told the audience that she was fortunate go grow up in a ski family, skiing little ski areas in the Adirondacks like Silver Bells and Willard Mountain holding onto her gold-colored Scott ski poles.

There was not much at Galena Lodge as she and others brought it back to life after it’d been closed for three years during the 1990s. Now, she noted, it has electricity and housing.

Kellam credited her husband Andy Munter for always encouraging her.

“He said, ‘Sure you can do that.’ And it only got in trouble a few times,” she said. “Now, with climate change so evident, my wish is we can protect and cherish our environment and look after each other because that’s what this community is all about.”

Craig Cooper described how his stepfather Ed “Scotty” Scott was born in Philadelphia, grew up in Long Island and always wanted to ski Sun Valley. After serving as a tank mechanic in the Army he came to Sun Valley in 1947.

Here, he invented lightweight aluminum ski poles to replace the bamboo ones. And took the family on the road to introduce them to skiers in California and Colorado. They were an instant hit here and in Europe.

“He taught me to ski by telling me to go to the top of Dollar, point my skis down and push off, saying he’d be waiting for me at the bottom,” Cooper recalled.

Scott was not afraid of expressing his oft-controversial opinions in letters to the editor and city council meetings, Cooper said. One mayor took offence to his words and challenged him to a fight in the bar—Scott won.

Despite his reputation for being outspoken, Scott was a great guy, said Charley French.

“I came to work for him in 1971 to build ski boots. And he’d have a yellow tablet and 10 pencils. When he started writing, he’d get so excited you could hear the lead breaking.”

Heidi Scott Bynum, Scott’s daughter, recounted how she was born in the Sun Valley Lodge but grew up in Tucson where her mother took her after breaking up with Scott. Scott never quit trying to get her back, however.

“And when I was 25, he said, ‘Why don’t you stay?’ so I did.”

Charlie Mills introduced George Gund III, noting that he loved everything, including ranching, fishing, cowboy poetry, Native American history, photography and travel.

When he heard some people hitting a puck in the late night hours at Sun Valley, he asked if he could join in and soon he was asking Herman Maricich if they could build an indoor ice rink for hockey. The rink was completed in 1974; the Sun Valley Suns hockey team was formed the next year with Gund playing and serving as benefactor for 20 years.

“If he had his hand in something, he followed through,” said Mills.

In 1936 when the resort opened, a few pitched the idea of ice hockey. But, while figure skating was accepted, it took that long to get ice hockey here, said Kristine Bretall, community engagement manager for the Wood River Museum of History + Culture.

George “Crunchy” Gund IV accepted the award on his late father’s behalf: “I just want to thank the community for playing hockey with my Dad. He just wanted people to play with.”

The presentation was put on by The Community Library and the Center for Regional History and featured short film clips put together by David Butterfield. It was followed by a wine, sushi and spanakopita reception at the Wood River Museum.

Jenny Emery Davidson, the library’s executive director, told the audience that The Library is planning a permanent installation honoring members of the Hall of Fame to be unveiled in December 2026 in the walkway between the Gold Mine and the building that houses the museum.

“The Hall of Fame was begun as a way to honor not only those who have accomplished great things in their sport but who have exhibited a generosity of spirit that enable the community to soar,” she said.

So far, 64 individuals have been honored.

“Great things have happened in Sun Valley slopes….great things have happened around Sun Valley Lodge…We hope that this outdoor Hall of Fame will recognize individual achievements while telling the community’s story,” she added.

Steve Powers said he is forever amazed and blessed to live in a town that has so many world-class athletes, many of whom have dedicated their lives to teach others and make mountains and trails available to enjoy winter sports.

“All the inductees and Charley French—now almost 100 years old—give me encouragement to never quit,” he said. “I still compete on the Concept 2 indoor rowing machine. Charley’s name, along with many others is taped to my Erg, telling me to ‘Never Quit.’ ”