The Sun Valley Winter Sports Hall of Fame honors the significant contributions of legendary local athletes and visionaries. The honorees have achieved in their sport or industry and have also given back to the Wood River Valley community. Inductees to the Sun Valley Winter Sports Hall of Fame are selected and honored every two years at The Community Library, spearheaded by the Jeanne Rodger Lane Center for Regional History.
Congratulations to the Class of 2023!
Induction Ceremony
6:00 p.m. Thursday, December 7, 2023
Library’s John A. and Carol O. Moran Lecture Hall
Watch the replay of the 2023 Induction Ceremony here.
Doors open at 5:30 p.m. for mixing and mingling.
For in-person attendance, registration is required.
For those who cannot attend in person, the program will be livestreamed on Vimeo and available for replay.
7:00 p.m. Reception
A reception will follow at The Library’s Wood River Museum of History and Culture, 580 4th Street East.
Judy Blumberg
Figure Skating
Judy Blumberg is a five-time National Dance Champion for ice skating, two-time Olympic Team Member Ice Dancer, US Figure Skating Hall of Famer, and coach for many figure skaters since 1990. Blumberg has been instrumental in the careers of many figure skaters who have passed through the Wood River Valley and the Sun Valley Ice Center.
John “Cub” Burke
Ice Hockey
Player, coach, general manager, and president are just a few of the titles held by John “Cub” Burke. An Original Sun Valley Suns team member from the 1970s, he coached, and brought in talented players to the Wood River Valley over the Suns’ 50-year history. Burke went on to coach, inspire, and mentor youth programs and is a founder of Sun Valley Youth Hockey. He also co-created the Sun Valley Senior Hockey League in the late 1970s.
Heather Flood Daves
Alpine Skiing
Heather Flood Daves was one of the highest-ranking skiers in the nation after she won the slalom at the NCAA championships in 1991. Following this recognition, Daves had a successful career on the U.S. Pro Ski Tour, standing on the podium many times in the US Nationals and Nor-Ams. Since, Flood Daves has spent years working, inspiring, and coaching generations of future skiers, both in her roles with Sun Valley Company and Sun Valley Ski Education Foundation. She is a Level 100 Coach for US Ski and Snowboard. Key to the growth and strength of the Sun Valley Youth Hockey program, Daves elevated it into Junior Hockey, Division 1 Hockey, and Division 3 Hockey, for both girls and boys.
Marc Mast
Adaptive Alpine Skiing and Adaptive Nordic Skiing
A long-time instructor and non-profit creator and operator, Mast has spent over 40 years helping adaptive athletes find joy in skiing. He started the adaptive skiing program in the Sun Valley Ski School and from 1993 to 2003, Mast was the Coordinator for Adaptive Skiing. Mast helped to develop adaptive Nordic skiing. Of the thousands of athletes he has worked with, many have gone on to compete at national and international levels. U.S. Paralympic coach for the Nordic Team, Mast also started Sun Valley Adaptive Sports to help fund training opportunities for para-athletes.
Jonna Mendes
Alpine Skiing
Inaugural Director of the Sun Valley Ski Academy, starting in 2011, Mendes coaches and oversees hundreds of winter student athletes who have come to Sun Valley to train and compete in all ski and snowboard disciplines. She has worked tirelessly to help them move forward with their various sports. She was on the US Ski Team in 1986, an Olympic Team Member competing in 1998, Nagano, and 2002, Salt Lake City. A four-time US National Champion—in GS and downhill. She won a Bronze medal in the World Championship, 2003, for Super-G.
Past Sun Valley Winter Sports Hall of Fame Inductees
View/download a list of past honorees here.
Class of 2021 Inductees
Watch the replay of the 2021 Induction Ceremony here.
Lisa-Marie Allen, Olympic figure skater, choreographer, and coach.
K2 Demonstration Team, Pat Bauman, Bob Griswold, Charlie McWilliams, and Jim Stelling were the daring performers.
Lane Monroe, Skier, U.S. Ski Team coach, former Sun Valley Ski Education Foundation Program Director and Head Alpine Coach.
John Weekes, Sun Valley Suns ice hockey architect, coach-manager, and player.
The SVWSHoF Class of 2021 induction ceremony was held on Wednesday, December 8, 2021. Watch the recorded ceremony.
Class of 2019 Inductees
Watch the replay of the 2019 Induction Ceremony here.
Graham Anderson, a significant contributor to the ski industry for seventy years, is also an inductee in the U.S. Ski and Snowboard Hall of Fame in 1984. He was a ski patroller and a long-time board member of the SVSEF.
Dick Dorworth is a down-hill world-record holder in the Diamond Sun race, coach, mountaineer, award-winning journalist, and author of four books. Also, he is an inductee in the U.S. Ski and Snowboard Hall of Fame, class of 2011.
Sonya Dunfield, a world champion figure skater, is also an inductee in both the U.S. Figure Skating Hall of Fame. She was an elite coach in the Sun Valley figure skating training center for many years. She was awarded the Professional Skaters Association’s Shulman Award for Lifetime Achievement in 1982.
W. Averell Harriman, as Board Chairman of Union Pacific Railroad, created the Sun Valley Resort in 1936. He was responsible for the first chair lift on Dollar Mountain. Sun Valley ski racing earned its world-class reputation with a 1937 cup race named after him–the Harriman Cup. Harriman is also an inductee in the U.S. Ski and Snowboard Hall of Fame in 1969.
Bob Jonas, a pioneer in the backcountry ski industry, established five backcountry yurts in the eighties and nineties. Also, in 1998, he co-founded the Wood River Nordic and Backcountry Skiers Alliance of Idaho. So successful this alliance was, it helped to initiate the “Winter Snow Pact,” a valued skier/snowmobiler collaboration that went to win a “Spirit of Idaho” award.
Doran Key, an accomplished athlete, was a beloved coach for Sun Valley Ski Education Foundation. Unstoppable, she coached over thirty years, and was deeply involved in the Kindercup competitions as the Head “D” Team Coach. Acknowledged for her years of coaching excellence, she was awarded the SVSEF Jack Simpson Dedicated Coaches Award in 2009.
Herman Maricich, head of the Sun Valley Skating School for many years, started the indoor ice rink in 1975. Using the new rink he launched the “Sun Valley on Ice” shows. And also, Maricich was instrumental in making Sun Valley a year round ice skating facility. This made it a destination for world-class ice skaters and consequently a much loved training center.
Jim Savaria, one of the co-founders of the Sun Valley Ski Education Foundation, has been a beloved coach for many years. He coached Olympians as well as taught kids at Rotarun when the rope-tow was first installed in the 50s. Savaria worked as a ski patrol and helped to develop safety protocols.
The SVWSHoF Class of 2019 induction ceremony was held online via Zoom in December, 2019.
Class of 2014 Inductees
Sigi Engl
Sigi Engl, a native of Kitzbuhel, became a ski instructor in Austria at 15. Used to winning ski races, he won the Italian championships in 1931–downhill and slalom. The Hahnenkahm combined and the Marmolata downhill were his 1935. In Austria, he won slalom and downhill championships twice before immigrating to the United States in 1937.
He came to Sun Valley to teach in 1939, winning Sun Valley’s prestigious Harriman Cup in 1941. In 1952, he became the director of the Sun Valley Ski School, after having served in the 10th Mountain Division in Italy during World War II.
Sigi’s Bowl on Bald Mountain is a lasting tribute to him. If it wasn’t for his innovative instructional methods, Sun Valley’s Ski School would not have been so internationally recognized.
Eye on Sun Valley, February 14, 2015.
Muffy Davis
Muffy Davis was paralyzed from the chest down from an accident during training. She was a 16-year-old champion ski racer when this happened.
Marc Mast, a trainer who taught Davis how to ski again, spoke at the induction ceremony. He asked members of the audience to close their eyes and imagine they were sitting on a beach ball with a ski underneath it.
“Then, imagine you’re skiing the same downhill course that the Olympic racers skied at 70 miles per hour,” Mast said. “That’s what it was like for Muffy racing in the Paralympics. As a result, she earned a fistful of medals.”
“(Ski Coach) Mike Brown said he had never seen anyone who could follow a line like Muffy. That goes to her intelligence and what the Sun Valley Ski Education Foundation taught her,” he added. (Excerpted from Eye on Sun Valley, February 14, 2015.)
Jack Simpson
Jack Simpson grew up herding cows at the family ranch in Wendell before he moved to Sun Valley in 1939. For many skiers, and Jack was no exception, Baldy was a great teacher. It was on Baldy where he fell in love with skiing. A bold and fearless ski racer, it was after donning a blond wig to stand in as Sonja Henie’s skiing double in the movie “Sun Valley Serenade” that he got the nickname “Sonja.”
Simpson was a candidate for the national ski team, but his father talked him out of it, saying he wasn’t going to make any money doing it, said his longtime friend, Jerry Edwards.
Later, in the 1960s, Simpson established a junior racing program. It became the roots of today’s Sun Valley Ski Education Foundation. To recognize his coaching ability, the Foundation honored him by establishing the Jack Simpson Dedicated Coaches Award. As a result, each year, this award is presented to a coach who best exemplifies Simpson’s values.
Class of 2013 Inductees
Bob Disbrow and Kim Kawaguchi, Joe Engen, Don and Gretchen Fraser, Jimmy Griffith, Teresa Heinz Family, Earl and Carol Holding, Maria Maricich, and Alison Owen
Class of 2012 Inductees
Rick Kapala, Muffy Ritz, Jack Reddish, Bob Rosso, Bob Smith, and Picabo Street
Class of 2011 Inductees
Jenny Busdon, Dick Durrance, Charley French, Jannette Burr Johnson, Warren Miller, Hans Muehlegger, Pete Patterson, Michel Rudigoz, Ntala Skinner, and Annie and Bill Vanderbilt
Class of 2010 Inductees
Nelson Bennett, Bobbie Burns, Christin Cooper, Chuck Ferries, Bill Janss, Rob Kiesel, Leif Odmark, Phil Puchner, and Kevin Swigert
