STORY AND PHOTO BY KAREN BOSSICK
One woman was among those who founded The Advocates for Survivors of Domestic Violence. Another used to bottle feed orphaned lambs in her father’s flock of 1,200 sheep.
A third co-owned an Amoco Oil station on the site where the Kentwood Lodge stands today. And the final woman found the Wood River Valley on a three-month cross-country bicycle trip and never left, finding work gluing goggles for Scott USA.
These are the four women who will be inducted into the Blaine County Museum Heritage Court on June 8 during an afternoon filled with musical and dance performances.
They will be honored first in a Heritage Court Tea on May 22 presented by The Community Library Center for Regional History. They will ride in Hailey’s Fourth of July Parade and Ketchum’s Wagon Days Parade, and they will also be feted at teas hosted by The Senior Connection and the Carey Fair Board
The court honors women who are 70 or older, have lived in Blaine County for at least 30 years and have made a contribution to the fabric of life in the valley.
JEANNE CASSELL, Sun Valley, was nominated by the Wood River Women’s Foundation. She grew up on a peach ranch near Fresno before earning a Master’s degree at Stanford University.
She met her husband Bill while they were working in Yosemite National Park, and the couple and their three children moved to Idaho in 1974 when Bill became president of the College of Idaho in Caldwell.
They discovered Sun Valley that first year and bought a condo in Sun Valley where they could hike, fish and cross country ski.
Bill’s job took them elsewhere, including Ohio, where he served as president of Heidelberg College, which also had campuses in Germany and Japan. Jeanne continued her passion as an educator as well. In 1995 both retired and moved to a home in Ketchum.
Cassell became board president of The Advocates in 2000, using that springboard to lead a capital campaign to build the first permanent shelter for abused women in Blaine County. She is fond of recounting how people told her was no need for such a thing here. “But domestic violence happens everywhere,” she said.
Her passion for gardening and seeking out wildflowers led her to the Sawtooth Botanical Garden. In 2004 she helped build The Garden of Infinite compassion, beaming as the Dalai Lama walked amongst orange marigolds strewn across the garden to bless a Tibetan Prayer Wheel that he gifted to the garden visiting the Wood River Valley on the anniversary of 9/11.
She started and led the garden’s popular wildflower walks nearly 20 years ago and still serves as president of the Garden’s Ambassadors Council.
She was quick to back Jo Murray and Barbara Thrasher’s vision to start the Wood River Women’s Foundation and has watched as the philanthropic organization has grown from 30 to 300 members in the process of giving away nearly $5 million to nonprofit organizations in that time. She also helped start the organization’s State of the Valley Forum as a member of the Education Committee.
She has served as president of the board of the Sun Valley Arts Center, now the Sun Valley Museum of Art. She and her husband Bill led the capital campaign to renovate and expand St. Thomas Episcopal Church in 2001. And she has long been a songbird in the Caritas Chorale.
Jeanne was honored by the Chamber of the Commerce as the Ketchum/Sun Valley Citizen of the Year in 2002 primarily for her work with The Advocates.
DIANE CORDES, Hailey, was nominated by The Senior Connection where she serves as board treasurer.
Cordes grew up in numerous places as the youngest of three in an Air Force family. But she and her husband Jeff found the Wood River Valley after a three-month cross-country bicycle trip during which she visited a brother who lived here. The two settled here right before Christmas in 1975.
She got a job gluing goggles for Scott USA where she later parlayed her degree in chemistry into working in the company’s research and development division until Scott USA moved to Utah.
She then parlayed her love for numbers into working as an office administrator and operations manager for artist Nancy Taylor Stonington, the Sun Valley/Ketchum Chamber of Commerce, Wood River Veneer and Conrad Brothers construction.
An outdoors gal, she continues to ski and snowshoe on the valley’s Nordic trails in winter while hiking and biking in the summer. After coaching daughter’s Laura (now Gvozdas)’ softball team, she co-crated the Summer Youth Program in 1995. The program was eventually incorporated into the Blaine County Recreation District’s programs.
As a member of the Hailey Library Board, she helped pass a bond allowing the library to purchase and renovate its current space at the corner of Croy and Main streets. And she served as treasurer for the Blaine County Democrats and Rep. Wendy Jaquet while Jaquet served in the State Legislature.
Cordes continues to serve as a member of the Hailey chapter of the PEO.
After 50 years in the valley she says she has never once thought of leaving, what with the public lands that surround the valley, providing varied opportunities for recreation. She also continues to be high on Hailey.
“It’s nice to easily run into someone you know when you are out and about,” she said.
LORNA KOLASH, Bellevue, was nominated by the Blaine County Historical Society.
She grew up on a farm near Huron, S.D., attending a one-room schoolhouse where all eight grades shared a single room. She met her husband Randy, who grew up in the Wood River Valley, when he visited South Dakota on a hunting trip.
That meeting at a nightclub followed by a late-night drive sparked a lifelong partnership.
Upon moving west, the Kolashes purchased an Amoco Oil gas station that stood on the corner of Ketchum where the Kentwood Lodge stands now. They settled in a Warm Springs condo and Lorna began selling sheepskin coats made in Boise at The Sheep Shack.
They eventually moved to Bellevue where they raised two daughters—Anna Edwards and Sarah Stavros—who continue to live in the area.
She founded Lorna’s Catering four decades ago, serving everything intimate local gatherings, private inflight meals for Sun Valley Aviation and events at the Sun Valley Writer’s Conference, the Trailing of the Sheep Festival, and the Sun Valley Museum of Art.
She also has served as Chief Judge of Elections and a volunteer with the Girl Scouts. And she managed the snack bar at Rotarun for four years, in addition to assisting with activities at St. Charles Catholic Church in Hailey.
She says it’s the people—friends old and new and the rich history—that she loves most about the Wood River Valley. And, of course the mountains.
LAURIE FISCUS, of Carey, was nominated by the Picabo/Carey Chamber of Commerce. She was born in Hailey on the second floor of the Fox Building, which now houses Hailey City Hall and the library. But she grew up on her family’s ranch in Carey where her family—the Bairds—raised feed for cattle, sheep and horses.
She attended a semester at Idaho State University in Pocatello, but her love for the land and animals drew her back to the ranch where she worked alongside her father baling hay, raising quarter horses and tending to 1,000 to 1,200 head of sheep.
She met her husband Theron, who had moved to Picabo a couple years earlier, in 1982. And five years later he jumped wholeheartedly into ranch life taking over management of Laurie’s family ranch.
Fiscus supplemented her life on the ranch by working as an office manager for several car dealerships, including Neyman Chevrolet, Sutton & Sons, Wood River Motors and Goode Motors. And upon retiring she worked parttime in the Carey School lunchroom for three years.
As the mother of three daughters—Amanda, Amy and Lindsay--she served as a 4-H leader for 15 years and on the Boalaine county Fair board.
She and her husband founded the John Adamson Memorial Car Show in honor of a friend. She’s served as a member of the American Legion Auxiliary since 1996 and as a page for the Idaho Department Auxiliary President in 2000 and 2001, helping with everything from paperwork to event coordination at the statewide summer conventions.
Carey, she said, “is a wonderful community where people still show up for each other.”
Editor’s Note: Susan Giannettino and Karen Bliss, both members of the Heritage Court committee, contributed to this story.