STORY BY LESLEY ANDRUS

 PHOTO BY KAREN BOSSICK

 She likes to say that her roots in Sun Valley spread out like an aspen grove. But the seedlings that created the Connie Post that her Sun Valley friends know so well fell on ground around the world.

 Her earlier memories date back to when she was 2 and living with her family outside of Davos, Switzerland. There, she picked up some German and Romanche, a Latin-based language still spoken.

 After a couple of years, the family, which by then included a younger sister and brother, moved to Washington, D.C., where her father--a brilliant mathematician--worked for the war department.

 When her father became ill, the family moved back to her birthplace of New Hampshire, where her family’s roots extended to the 1600s. That’s when her mother’s family had received a land grant through the King James Charter.

 Growing up in a small town with a population of 400 between Manchester and Nashua in a state whose motto is “Live Free or Die,” Connie had a childhood of adventure and independence.

 A guiding light in her life was her grandmother, a practical nurse who imparted to Connie a love of nature, horses and community service.  Two cousins lived with her grandmother and the three of them spent their days and summers roaming the woods and riding bareback through the fields.

 Connie says her father was the epitome of the absent-minded professor. He taught at the local junior high school and later worked for a research company in Cambridge, and she remembers a summer they managed a vegetable stand together. Connie’s mother taught high school English, Speech and Drama.

 One January her parents gave her the option of a horse or skis.  Being the dead of winter, she chose skiing.  To pursue it competitively, she chose to go to the University of Colorado.

 In her sophomore year she remembers the moment her life changed.  Intensely competitive, Connie practiced over and over how to go into a turn and come out skiing faster—a feat that’s called “carving.” One day she realized the enormity of the commitment to competition and to “days and days of turns,” and she decided there should be more to life than this.

 What to do? She decided to design warmer ski clothes. Having fallen in love with the Pacific Northwest, she quit school at the University of Colorado and moved to Seattle where she enrolled in an apparel design program at Seattle Community College.

She augmented school by working full time at Nordstrom and learned everything about clothing design, construction, commercial cutting and pattern layout.

 Upon graduation, she went to work as the general manager of a cottage industry that produced ski and tennis accessories sold nationwide.  After three years pursuing this and taking part in trade shows around the country, Connie went to work for Serac--a Seattle ski wear manufacturer.

 When the company moved to Sandpoint, Idaho, she met and married Ned Post and they moved to Vienna, where Ned had obtained a job with a ski binding company.

 In Vienna Connie gave birth to her two children--Christina and Griffin. She calls it “the greatest thing I have ever done.” To this day, Connie feels blessed that she was able to spend such quality time with her children, sharing her passion for reading and outdoor activities, especially skiing. 

 Then, it was off to London for two years, where she busied herself remodeling a house and entertaining the numerous guests that visited.  The next move was to Lake Forest in Chicago for four years where Ned worked for Wilson Sporting Goods. He traveled constantly, chalking up 242 days on the road one year.

 During a spring break trip to Sun Valley, the Posts bought a condo and Ned received a job offer from Scott USA.  With the children in grammar school, it proved a wonderful move and Connie has been here ever since.

 After the couple broke up, Connie raised her children while pursuing various jobs in the community from Fox Creek to Roots to the Sun Valley Company where she worked for 12 years in the resort’s retail department. 

 During this time, Christina attended and graduated from Whitman College, married and gave birth to a son.  She now lives with her family in Portland.  Griffin went to Bowdoin, then Denver University, where he graduated in five years with a Bachelor of Arts and Master of Business Administration, despite taking every winter trimester off to ski.  Griffin now lives in Jackson Hole and travels the world skiing, writing and promoting his sponsors.

 After her retirement from Sun Valley Company, Connie traveled for six months by herself around the western United States in her vintage Airstream, meeting wonderful people through spontaneous interactions.  During that experience she also realized that Sun Valley was home--the place she had roots that “spread out like an aspen grove.”

 She settled in back home  where she has immersed herself in music, movies, reading and skiing, along with spending quality time with friends who have special needs.  It is the beauty of nature that fills her soul--those moments in these mountains with the moon setting in front of her and the sun rising behind her and the alpenglow 360 degrees around her.  Connie gives thanks daily for her health, her life, her friends and her ability to live in this beautiful place.