STORY AND PHOTO BY KAREN BOSSICK

One came to Sun Valley to work as a waitress for the Union Pacific Railroad. Another saw her father lose his life in the Triumph Mine. One served as a nurse in the early Moritz Hospital at Sun Valley. And the other tackled the need for babysitting via a babysitting co-op.

These four will be inducted into the Blaine County Heritage Court on Sunday, June 12.

Mary Ann Flaherty, Larraine Bell Davis, Betty Grant and Nancy Kennette will be honored at a Gala Coronation Ceremony at 2 p.m. Sunday, June 12, at the Wood River High School Performing Arts Theater at the Community Campus in Hailey.

Wendy Jaquet will serve as Master of Ceremonies and Hailey Mayor Martha Burke will introduce the ladies. There will be music and dance, a tribute to the late Teddie Daley who co-founded the Heritage Court and a ceremony honoring the Ladies with flowers, tiaras and sashes. A reception will follow.

The four Ladies will ride in the Days of the Old West Fourth of July Parade in Hailey, the Wagon Days Parade in Ketchum and the Labor Day Parade in Bellevue.

The Senior Connection will also host a luncheon for the Ladies on Aug. 4. And they will join previous inductees at a private tea and luncheon at a one of Bellevue’s vintage homes in early September.

The Blaine County Heritage Court was founded 18 years ago to honor women who have made a contribution to the fabric of the Wood River Valley. Women must be at least 70 years of age and have lived in the valley for 30 years.

• Mary Ann Flaherty, who represents Ketchum/Sun Valley, was nominated by the Heritage Court committee.

  She was born in Omaha, Neb., where Union Pacific Railroad Company was headquartered, and came to Sun Valley in 1949 where she waitressed at the Sun Valley Lodge and Ram Restaurant. In 1950 she met John “Jack” Flaherty, a pastry chef for the resort, at the Alpine Club where the Sun Valley staff would meet for drinks and dancing. The couple wed a year later.

  An accomplished seamstress, Flaherty made beautiful wool and silk long skirts for Pete’ Lane’s in Sun Valley. In 1958 she and Jack became one of the early homeowners in the Warm Springs area, raising four children there. As the children grew, she began volunteering at the hospital making “new baby packages” for the labor and delivery wing

• Betty Grant, who was nominated by the Blaine County Historical Museum, is a familiar face to anyone who frequents the Senior Connection where she brightens the day of those around her with her incessant curiosity and chatter.

  Grant grew up on an 80-acre farm in Minnesota seven miles from the nearest town where she attended a one-room schoolhouse with 15 fellow students. After getting a nursing degree, she worked briefly for Sun Valley Company and for Northwest Airlines in Seattle before returning to Sun Valley to work at Moritz Hospital.

  An avid skier, she married Bill Grant, another avid skier, a probate judge and a magistrate judge. The two started a furniture business and the first Sears Roebuck Catalog store in Hailey. They fixed up old homes and sold them and Betty worked as a Mary Kay consultant in addition to raising the couple’s six daughters.

• Larraine Bell Davis, who was nominated by the Carey Fair Board, lost her father in a mining accident at the Triumph Mine when she was 2. She eventually married Lloyd Davis and they have lived on a ranch in Carey for more than 60 years where Larraine helped with the cattle and horses while raising three children.

  She also worked as a bookkeeper for the Hailey’s Clerk’s office, as a secretary for Carey School, and for Blaine County’s Magistrate Court.

  She’s served as secretary, timer and flag carrier or the Carey Pioneer Days. And she’s helped with 4-H, Basque family history research and women’s groups associated with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

• Nancy Kennette, who was nominated by the Bellevue Museum, was a Norfolk, Neb., native who studied social welfare at California State University in Chico before moving to Bellevue in 1982. There, she and other young moms formed a babysitting co-op where each had all the kids at their house one day a week while the other moms worked.

As owner of Kennette Property Management, she has worked in property management and cleaning for Sun Valley Aviation and private homes, building a longtime client base before giving the business to employees. She serves on the NAMI-WRV board, working to offer the first mental health services in Bellevue, and she is involved with The Hunger Coalition.

She met her husband Sam on a Salmon River excursion and they love working in their beautiful garden, picking apricots for their legendary apricot jam which they gift friends and neighbors with.