Lives

Fernie Resort developer

Heiko Socher
Passing Date: October 8, 2016

*/ Fernie Alpine Resort developer Heiko Socher, 86, died October 8, 2016. Born in Berlin, Germany, Socher immigrated to British Columbia as a teenager shortly after World War II, and studied forestry at the University of British Columbia, where he joined the ski team and the outing club. With the...

Dartmouth skier, adventurer, politician

Lowell Thomas, Jr.
Passing Date: October 1, 2016

Lowell Thomas Jr., film producer, author, politician, pilot and friend of the Dalai Lama, died October 1, 2016, a week short of his 93rd birthday. In 1939 his father, Lowell Thomas, Sr., sent the 15-year-old to South America as assistant to a Fox Movietone cameraman, to learn cinematography. In...

Australian cross country ski official

Carl Melvey
Passing Date: September 22, 2016

Carl Melvey, a leader in developing cross-country competition in Australia, died on September 21, 2016, at age 82. Melvey launched a successful hobby-products importing business in 1972, and soon thereafter became active in the Boonoona Ski Club at Perisher Valley, where his daughter Camille began...

PR manager for the Italian and Austrian teams

Robert Brunner
Passing Date: September 21, 2016

Robert Brunner, one of the greatest characters on the alpine World Cup, died of cancer on September 21, 2016 in Merano, Italy. He was 64. Brunner was born in 1952 in Sterzing/Vipiteno, in the South Tyrol region of Italy, at the foot of the Brenner highway leading to Innsbruck. He spent more than...

Coach to Canada’s champions

Pepi Salvenmoser
Passing Date: September 21, 2016

Pepi Salvenmoser, who coached a generation of Canadian women to Olympic and World Championship medals, died September 21 in his native town, Kitzbuhel, Austria. He was 90 years old. An all-around athlete, Salvenmoser competed locally in hockey, swimming and diving in the post-war years. But he was...

U.S. national champion, ski retailer and sales rep

Dean R. Perkins
Passing Date: September 10, 2016

Dean R. Perkins, a U.S. national champion in downhill and GS at mid-century, died September 10 at age 89. Born in Montpelier, Idaho, Perkins grew up in Ogden, Utah, and learned to ski and race on the rope tow at Snow Basin. He raced for the Weber State and University of Utah ski teams and also...

U.S. Ski Team trustee, Windham resort owner

James “Randy” MacDonald
Passing Date: September 2, 2016

U.S. Ski Team trustee and Windham resort owner James Randall “Randy” MacDonald of Greenwich, Connecticut, passed away on Friday, September 2, 2016 after a long battle with cancer. He was 63 years old. At St. Francis University, MacDonald earned a bachelor’s degree in political science and a master’...

Australian ski official, Head importer

Albert Richard “Bert” Gardner
Passing Date: August 24, 2016

*/ Australian ski pioneer Albert Richard “Bert” Gardner died August 24, 2016 at age 91. An electrical engineer and amateur soccer player, Gardner began skiing at Perisher Valley in 1948, and helped launch the Orana ski lodge, completed in 1952. With his brother Reg, he founded an electrical...

Sports and ski photographer

Lew Portnoy
Passing Date: July 17, 2016

Sports and ski photographer Lew Portnoy died of complications from idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis—a progressive lung disease— on July 17, 2016. He was 75. A St. Louis native, Portnoy attended Washington University and then learned the commodities business at the Chicago Board of Trade. At 27, he...

Colorado's Cross-Country Icon

Sven Wiik
Passing Date: July 5, 2016

Sven Wiik, who coached generations of cross country skiers in Colorado, died July 5 at age 95, at the Yampa Valley Medical Center in Steamboat Springs. Born in Solleftea, Sweden, Wiik trained as both a cross country racer and gymnast, and competed in gymnastics at the 1948 Olympics in London, when...