Boulder roots in the 2023 CO Snowsports Hall of Fame class
Each year, five Coloradans are inducted into the Colorado Snowsports Museum’s Hall of Fame for their contributions to the winter sports industry in the Centennial State.
This year’s athletes, including two who have called Boulder home, will be honored on Aug. 27 at the Gerald R. Ford Amphitheater in Vail.
“Every class of inductees is different, and this year we celebrate individuals who have dedicated their lives to educating, inspiring and preserving snow sports in Colorado,” said Jennifer Mason, executive director of the Colorado Snowsports Museum and Hall of Fame, in a press release. “Each person represents a unique area of Colorado and illustrates the fact that Colorado as a whole leads the way in snow sports.”
Inductee Seth Masia received his master’s degree from CU Boulder and raised a family in town. He was a key editor and writer for SKI Magazine starting in the ’70s and served as president of the International Skiing History Association.
“It’s gratifying to know that people enjoyed reading my stuff over the 50 years that I’ve been doing this,” he says. “Journalists don’t often get a lot of direct positive feedback.”
Some of Masia’s recent writing looks at the turning point of alpine skiing in 1928, when two innovations, steel-edged skis and locked-down heels, “completely changed the sport,” doubling downhill speeds, and launching skiing into the global arena at the 1936 Olympics in Germany.
Throughout his career, Masia got to witness more recent snowsport history in real time.
“The first snowboard Jake Burton gave me … was just a blank piece of plywood with an interesting shape to it, but it didn’t have steel edges and it didn’t have a plastic bottom,” Masia says. “It didn’t turn very well and it was useless on hard snow because it didn’t have steel edges. It wasn’t until Jake adopted some real ski technology that snowboards became practical and usable.”
Burton went on to create one of the premiere snowboarding brands in the world.
Joining the 2023 class with Masia is the late Sandy Hildner, who died of cancer in 2019. Hildner trained with the CU Boulder men’s ski team before there was a women’s team. Her accomplishments include winning the U.S. National Slalom Championship in 1963 at age 18, winning Aspen’s 1967 Roch Cup and becoming the first woman Olympian from CU Boulder.
“Sandy Hildner’s legacy is amazing as she made a life-long commitment to our sport and was clearly a difference maker,” said Olympian and former U.S. ski team president Bill Marolt in a press release. “I wholeheartedly support her nomination and induction into the Colorado Snowsports Hall of Fame.”
Nominations are made by a 140-member panel composed of current Hall of Fame members, snow sports industry representatives, winter resorts and the Hall’s board of directors. More than 200 people have been inducted into the Snowsports Hall of Fame since 1977.
Other inductees this year are Cheryl Jensen, founder of the Vail Veterans Program, John Norton, an employee at ski resorts in Crested Butte and Aspen, and Hilaree Nelson, one of the most accomplished ski mountaineers and aplinists in the world, who died skiing a Nepalese mountain in 2022.
Changes to RTD fares
RTD is lowering the cost of riding across the district.
The company’s board of directors approved new fare structures, policies and programs on July 25 after a yearlong review that included an equity analysis and a system-wide fare study.
“RTD is removing barriers to transit access and reconciling longstanding concerns from customers and the community regarding the high cost and complexity of fares currently in place,” said Debra Johnson, RTD CEO, in a press release.
Approved changes include lowering fares for three-hour, day-long and monthly passes, expanding the LiVE program’s income-eligibility and creating a Zero Fare for Youth year-long pilot program allowing people ages 19 and under to ride for free.
Fares continue to be free through August as part of the Zero Fare for Better Air initiative.
Nominations open for Jim Swaeby Peace Award
The Boulder Rotary Club is seeking nominations for the fifth annual Jim Swaeby Peace Award.
The award commemorates Swaeby and his involvement with community organizations like the Rotary Club, Historic Boulder and the Boulder Museum of History. The recipient must be an individual who lives or works in Boulder County, is making a significant contribution to building a culture of peace ,and exemplifies the life of Jim Swaeby and the Rotary’s commitment to peace.
Swaeby grew up in Boulder and attended CU for both his bachelor’s and master’s degrees. Soon after, he traveled to the Kingdom of Tonga as a Peace Corps volunteer. Nine months into his service, he was the first Peace Corps volunteer drafted into Vietnam.
His life’s mission was to “do an unexpected act of kindness or generosity for someone less privileged,” according to the Rotary Club.
The deadline for nominations is Aug. 25.
