STORY AND PHOTO BY KAREN BOSSICK

The Trailing of the Sheep Festival will cut the ribbon on its new Patricia Crandall Lane Trailing of the Sheep Festival Archives tonight at Ketchum’s Community Library.

The ribbon cutting and dedication, open to the public, will be held at 5 p.m. tonight—Wednesday, June 30—at the library.

The Festival, which is celebrating 25 years this year, has gifted its historical archives to The Library. The Library will own, curate and maintain the archives.

Kali Smith, a Wood River Valley local of Basque descent has been hired this summer as part of an internship program established to work on the project. Smith has a bachelor’s degree in Sociology and Anthropology from the University of Redlands. She plans to pursue a graduate degree in Library Sciences at City University of London.

Patricia Crandall Lane, who made the project possible, was born on the third floor of the Sun Valley Lodge when it served as a hospital. Her mother was Jeanne Rodger Lane Moritz, one of the 17 women who founded The Community Library Association.

Her father was John Crandall “Pete” Lane, a native Idahoan and the owner of Pete Lane’s, the Sun Valley ski store. He was also a founder of the Sun Valley Ski Education Foundation. His father was John Pusey “Jack” Lane, a merchant and livestock man who operated out of the iconic building on the corner of Sun Valley Road and Main Street in Ketchum where he was known for entertaining sheep ranchers to the exclusion of others.

Patty Lane grew up on the Box L Ranch, the Lane family sheep property just south of Ketchum that spread the width of the Wood River Valley and up on Elkhorn Gulch. In addition to working at Pete Lane’s, she served as a trustee of The Community Library. She passed away in 2016, leaving a generous gift to the Trailing of the Sheep Festival from her estate.

The Trailing of the Sheep Festival, which has been recognized as one of the top Ten Fall Festivals in the World by msn.com travel, will be held Oct. 6-10, 2021.