Where History and Skiing Collide

Tomorrow I am throwing an event for 160 people. Did I mention that?

160 people. I was shooting for 200. I was incredibly concerned last weekend when it was only 85 people. And I was still worried Tuesday when it was 100. So when that turned, somehow, into 160 people in two days, I was thrilled. Leave it to the Fraser Valley to wait until the last minute, said one of the two fabulous museum administrators that basically did all the hard work. (Tim and Darcy ROCK! *ROCK with a glorifying singing voice). Wait until the last minute people did. 160 people. (Can I collapse into a chair yet?) We may, yet, have a few stragglers signing up or coming through the door unannounced — we'd love that too.

This is my inaugural event both with the Grand County Historical Association and, basically, the whole world ... if you don't count my wedding, which had only 50 people and a ski slope. I was voted onto the board June 10 and immediately assigned chair of the event committee because the marketing committee was already taken and, well, nobody else wanted to do it. When I say committee, in this sense, it's typically a one man show. (Oh, and Tim Nicklas and Darcy Miller ROCK!*) It's laughable, really — ME in charge of events. I can barely organize dinner. But, I have fully utilized the strategy of delegation. (Have I mentioned, Tim and Darcy ROCK!*).

I agreed to join the board in the first place because the executive director was earnest and I had a good friend also on the board. They both resigned one month later. Looking across the table at four dedicated board pioneers in their legacy years, I knew I had to stay and help. Now I am the Marketing AND Events Committee.

Somehow, I talked many wonderful, generous people into jumping on board — in particular author Frank Pilkington whose book about the history behind the names of ski runs, "What's in a name at Winter Park and Mary Jane," became the driving theme. And thank you Kristen Lodge for tossing his name my way. Now go train for Ironman (you seriously ROCK*). I knew we needed something about ski history to make this event exciting, and it was already penned onto the calendar five days before the kick off of ski season. On Tuesday, Aug. 10 I emailed Frank, and the following day he graciously agreed to speak.

Then I made a Hail-Mary, late-August pitch to Winter Park Resort, which is — by the way — the oldest, continuously operational ski area in Colorado. Mistalynn Lee and Gary DeFrange blew me away with their generosity, offering us a place to hold the dinner at the base of the ski area, days before opening. They even helped pay for the food.

Francie de Vos jumped in during September and offered us some help planning before diving headfirst into the campaign to elect Freeta Goodhome as Grand Dog. She won, raising about $1 Billion. (The animal shelter and advocates are the real winners.) Before doing that, however, she sent us Karen Gadberry, HR Director for the resort, who agreed to be our emcee and helped us spread the word.

Our staff and the five other active board members, several in their 80s, went out and canvased the streets for donations to our silent auction. We received more than 60 items including a dog sled ride, a trip to the hot springs and an Adirondack chair made entirely out of skis by the Guest Speaker himself.

We've had 10 volunteers step up to help this week from out of the woodwork — half of them are under 40. I can honestly say that there's a lot of excitement building around this.

I saw the setup tonight. It looks better than I ever imagined. Our tables are named after historic ski runs — marked by Green Circles, Blue Squares and Black Diamonds — tomorrow, before we begin setting up at 4 p.m., the "events committee" is having a major arts & crafts session at the museum with Darcy.

Now, I've just got to figure out how the heck I'm going to have time to get dressed between playing with scissors and glue, sloshing through the mud with our parking volunteers and carrying dusty cardboard boxes of books and silent auction items up three flights of stairs.

And, while I'm at it, I better go figure out what I'm going to wear. Good night!