There have, over the years, been many women who have played important roles in skiing, including those who have gained fame on skis or played supporting roles to those who have.
Too often forgotten and frequently overlooked, that will change tonight when 10 outstanding women in Utah skiing will be recognized at the University of Utah J. Willard Marriott Library Ski Archives annual gathering. The 10 are:
Maxine Bounous, Provo.
Evelyn Engen, Salt Lake City.
Virginia Huidekoper, Wilson, Wyo.
Jannette Johnson, Sun Valley, Idaho.
Wilma Johnson, Sandy.
Dolores LaChapelle, Silverton, Colo.
Margo Walters McDonald, Salt Lake City.
Gladys Miller, Ogden.
Suzy Harris Rytting, Salt Lake City.
Jean Saubert, Big Fork, Mont.
Rytting will also receive the S.J. and J.E. Quinney Award for her contributions to skiing.
Bounous is known for her ski instruction and powder skiing. She was a member of the Timpanogos Mountain Ski Club from 1946 to 1949 and first taught skiing in 1947 for Brigham Young University while a student. In 1967, she joined her husband, Junior, at Timp Haven and established the Junior Bounous Ski School where she created a fifth-grade learn-to-ski program for the Utah County schools, a precursor to the popular ski and snowboard program operated by the county today.
Engen married the late Alf Engen in 1937 and traveled extensively with him during their early married life. At Idaho's Sun Valley Ski Club, she served as office manager during the 1940s leading up to the 1948 Olympic Winter Games when Alf was the U.S. Olympic Team's coach.
She started and operated the Alf Engen Co., a manufacturer of suntan cream, lotion and a series of popular ski waxes from the mid 1940s through the 1960s and was the business force behind the Alf Engen Ski School at Alta.
Huidekoper began skiing in the hills east of Salt Lake City in the mid-1930s. She had a successful racing career competing in well-known races throughout the Intermountain region.
In the 1940s, she moved to Jackson Hole where she was one of the founders of the Jackson Hole Ski Club. She also was a principal in the founding, developing and ongoing success of the Snow King Ski Area at Jackson Hole.
After her first ski race at a young age, Jannette Burr Johnson was hooked. Soon after she entered a four-way competition, taking third place and defeating many males in the competition.
In 1950 and 1954, Johnson was a participant in FIS competition in Sweden and a member of the U. S. Olympic Team in 1952 that competed in Oslo, Norway. Throughout the 1950s, she was a regular competitor on the national and international ski circuits.
Wilma Johnson shared her husband Ted's dream of creating Snowbird Ski and Summer Resort in Little Cottonwood Canyon from the time they were married in the early 1960s. By 1965, Ted had acquired the Blackjack and Snowbird mining claims thanks in large part to her behind-the-scenes researching skills. With a promotional film and a scale model of their proposed Snowbird Village in the back of their station wagon, the couple toured the country trying to raise money for a limited partnership they had planned to help finance the ski area of their dreams.
LaChapelle is one of the West's most prolific ecological writers and renowned powder skiers. From 1947 to 1950 she taught skiing in Aspen and in 1950 made the first ski ascent of Mt. Columbia, the second highest peak in the Canadian Rockies.
She later moved to Alta with her husband and was on the Forest Service's first avalanche and snow research team. Today, she is known as one of the country's leading ecologists and has written several books.
McDonald began skiing at Bear Gulch, Idaho, in 1951. In 1961 she won first place in the Sun Valley Open, the Snow Cup and the Intermountain Championships. A year later, she raced in Europe and earned the number one seed in the downhill. In 1963 she was a prominent figure in the major "cup" races. In 1964 she was named to the U.S. Olympic Ski Team that competed in Innsbruck, Austria. That same year she became a member of the U.S. National Team. She was executive director of the Intermountain Ski Association from 1967 to 1970.
For nearly 40 years, the names Earl and Gladys Miller were almost synonymous with Snowbasin, ski teaching and racing in northern Utah. In 1950 Earl and Gladys took ownership of the Snowbasin Ski School, and Gladys began 35 years of dedication to the enterprise, working on chores that ranged from office and administrative work to food service.
Earl and Gladys were a team, operating one of the successful ski programs in the state. She also served as a race official and organizer of Intermountain junior ski racing.
Rytting cut an incredible swath in the regional and national competitive ski scenes in the 1940s. She was named a member of the U.S. Olympic Ski Team in 1952 that was to compete in Oslo, Norway.
Her skiing triumphs during the late 1940s established her as one of the finest female skiers in the country. She was inducted into the National Ski Hall of Fame in 1988 and in 1999 was named one of Utah's "50 Greatest Athletes of the Century" by The Salt Lake Tribune. She was inducted into the Intermountain Ski Hall of Fame this year.
Saubert is a two-time Junior National winner and successfully competed in the rarified ranks of World Championships and FIS events. In 1963, she won the Harriman Cup and Snow Cup and donned the bronze and silver medals in the slalom and giant slalom, respectively, in the 1964 Olympic Winter Games.
She coached junior racers, mentored ski teams at BYU, Sundance Resort and at Snowbird, and competed in Over-30 soccer for 22 years.