Locals 2011

Locals A celebration of our favorite personalities | 2011

From unicyclers and youth pastors to fire marshals and Nordic phenoms, At Home in Steamboat Springs brings you an inside look at locals — all nominated by our readers — who help make our community what it is.

Find Von Wilson’s profile on page 37.

Photo: John F. Russell

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Photo: John F. Russell Story: Nicole Inglis

R allying

for

a

cause

Linda Danter When Linda Danter was a young girl, she hated the color pink. As a tomboy and sports fanatic, she made her mother cover up the pink in her room by painting her walls blue.

Now, as the founder of Steamboat’s Rally for the Cure breast cancer fundraiser, she finds herself with drawers full of pink paraphernalia.

“It’s a ton of work,” says the retired physical education teacher. “I think I’m nuts. It possesses me.”

It’s because of all the women and their families who have been touched by breast cancer that she dedicates herself to organizing the annual golf tournament.

In its first year, the rally raised $1,136.

Now in its 13th year, the event sells out at 212 participants and raises more than $30,000.

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Two-thirds of those funds stay in the area through the Yampa Valley Breast Cancer Awareness Project and the rest goes to the Susan G. Komen Foundation. Not a dime gets spent on administrative costs: She and her husband pay for the postage for thank you notes.

Danter, a Brooklyn, N.Y., native, moved to Steamboat Springs in 1976 with her husband, Rich. The pair always had dreamed of living in Steamboat, but their jobs as teachers in the Boulder Valley School District meant commuting three and a half hours to work for 23 years.

Still, they were never tempted to move to the Front Range.

“I love where we live, I’m just so proud of it,” she says with more than a hint of New York accent. “I love to show it off.”

If there was ever a poster girl for the

Steamboat lifestyle, Danter would be her. In winter, she skis every day. And in summer, it’s all golf. She works at the Steamboat Golf Club, as an ambassador for Steamboat Ski Area and as the volunteer coordinator for Storm Peak Laboratory, where she helped launch more than 100 weather balloons this past winter as a part of a cloud study.

“She has this unbelievable energy,” says longtime friend Mary Effinger. “She gets behind something and doesn’t stop until it’s taken care of.”

Any good day for Danter is a “three-sport day,” which might include a hike with her Labrador retriever, Sunny Delight, a round of golf and even bowling.

“I love where I live,” she says. “And I hate to travel. I love to be here, no matter what season it is.”

B ig

wheels

keep

on

turning

Scott Schlapkohl Scott Schlapkohl has been spinning his wheels in Steamboat Springs for 27 years now — literally, not figuratively.

Even Denny Swanson, his boss at Ace at the Curve, wants him to take a long lunch so he can bike ride or skate ski.

“I’m much more effective at work when I can fit in a ride,” Schlapkohl says.

The longtime manager of our local hardware store credits Swanson and Swanson’s late brother, Wayne, with teaching him to treat his employees like a family — like everyone’s a spoke on the same wheel. “I’ve got a great bunch of people,” Schlapkohl says about his staff.

“It really makes a difference.”

Schlapkohl grew up riding a 24-inch Huffy with coaster brakes all over the little town of Redwood Falls, Minn. He rode that bike to the swimming pool, the baseball diamond and the gravel pit. “You’re blessed when you can grow up in a small town,” he says.

Maryann Wall, one of Schlapkohl’s cycling buddies, says Steamboat is fortunate that he has remained here all these years.

“He’s an incredible asset for our community,” Wall says.

“He volunteers for everything, donating both money and time.”

With its national fundraisers for the Children’s Miracle Network, ACE has provided a way for Schlapkohl to pursue his passion for pedaling while making a difference in people’s lives. In 2006, he garnered pledges and participated in a group cycling event that took him more than 500 miles from Jackson, Wyo., to Missoula, Mont. He got back in the saddle the next summer to ride from Everett, Wash., to Missoula.

Already this year, Schlapkohl estimates he has covered 1,600 miles on his bike, thanks in part to a late winter trip to California. And, of course, those nooner rides he fits in every chance he gets.

Photo: matt stensland Story: tom Ross

Summer 2011 |

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I nstrumental in building a band program

Jim Knapp

Photo: matt stensland Story: Jack Weinstein

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Locals

| Summer 2011

When Jim Knapp took over the Steamboat Springs School District band program four years ago, he had 10 students in high school band. This year, he has 65.

“He’s just been instrumental in getting the band program in the schools up and running and now thriving,” says parent Pam Pierce, whose son was one of those 10 students and whose daughter is one of the 65. “It’s a number of things; he’s a great musician and has a real passion for music that he passes on to everybody he comes into contact with.”

Knapp, a Columbus, Ohio, native, oversees a sixth- through 12th-grade band program that now has 285 students participating, up from 165 the year before he arrived. His program includes bands for sixth, seventh and eighth grades, middle school and high school jazz bands and a high school drum line. He hopes to add percussion and brass ensembles next year.

He adds that his 10-year goal of having 8 percent of the high school’s students enrolled in band already has been realized.

He has about 10 percent of the school’s students this year — Knapp says the national average for schools of similar sizes is 6 to 7 percent — and with higher numbers at Steamboat Springs Middle School, that trend is likely to continue.

Knapp, who celebrates his 20th season as a teacher next year, says he came to Steamboat because he knew the band program had potential in a place he says “couldn’t be a more musically rich environment.” He adds that the band program collaborates with local organizations such as the Steamboat Symphony Orchestra and Strings Music Festival and countless local musicians.

Knapp wants the success of the program to continue and says he’s trying to establish tradition. “We’re a 4A school,” he says. “I want us to have one of the strongest mountain music programs in the state.”

Photo: matt stensland Story: Jack Weinstein

F amily

and

fire

Jay Muhme The two most important things to Jay Muhme are family and fire.

The walls of the Steamboat Springs Fire Rescue fire marshal’s office are covered with photos of his family — wife, two children and four grandchildren — at home or outdoors on fishing and hunting outings.

Or coaching wrestling (Muhme was a high school state champion in 1971 and runnerup in 1972). And there are photos of fires, all of which he helped fight.

“I like photos,” he says. “This pretty much sums up my life: family, kids, hunting, fishing and fire.”

Muhme, 57, is a lifetime local; he is a 1972 graduate of Steamboat Springs High School.

He’s been involved with the Steamboat fire department almost as long, volunteering

with his dad, a firefighter, since he was 16.

Routt County Office of Emergency Management Director Bob Struble, a lifelong friend who worked with Muhme for about 30 years with the fire department, says Muhme’s family is “number one.”

Struble says fire might be a close second.

“His dedication to the fire service is unbelievable,” he says. “It’s an important part of his life, right there with family.”

After graduating from high school, Muhme worked in construction but continued volunteering with the department. His first salaried job with Steamboat came in 1985 when he was named fire marshal, responsible for administration and enforcement of the fire code and investigations.

“It’s just always been a part of my life,” he says. “You just joined the fire department. It was all volunteer back then.

When you got old enough, you joined. In my family, that’s just what you did, I guess.”

Fire technician Renee Patterson-Gaerlan, who has known Muhme since she was 10 years old when her dad was a volunteer firefighter, calls him “old-school Steamboat through and through.”

Muhme jokes that he’s never left Steamboat for more than 14 days at a time.

And he doesn’t have any plans to change that because everything he needs is right here.

“I never expected to have what I have and be as satisfied as I am,” he says. “I didn’t know a person could be.”

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A front - row seat to the miracle of childbirth

Mary Bowman

Photo: John F. Russell Story: Brent boyer

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Not many of us can say we’re part of 120 miracles every year.

Dr. Mary Bowman can.

The Steamboat Springs obstetrician and gynecologist provides a calming presence and expert care to more than 100 Yampa Valley women each year as they welcome their newborns into the world. And she’s been doing it since 1997, which means there’s a whole lot of area children — and now teens — whose first moments of life outside the womb were spent in Bowman’s hands.

Obstetrics is just half of her 60-hour-a-week job as one of three doctors at Yampa Valley OB/GYN. The workload associated with the thousands of patients at their practice is significant, but Bowman wouldn’t have it any other way.

“It’s what I’m supposed to be doing,” she says. “Not everyone finds that, so I’m really lucky.”

Dr. Leslie Ahlmeyer started the practice shortly after she and Bowman did their residencies together in Denver. The pair clicked, and Steamboat Springs was a perfect spot to settle for Mary and her husband, Jay. As the practice has grown — it now includes Dr. Megan Palmer — so too has Bowman’s appreciation of what she does. She says she likes to help women feel empowered to take good care of themselves, and she enjoys caring for patients long term.

When not at the office, or delivering babies in the Family Birth Place at Yampa Valley Medical Center, Bowman is at home with Jay and their 14-year-old son, Nate. They fit Steamboat’s mountain lifestyle to a T — winters are spent on the ski slopes, and summers are spent running and mountain biking on trails from here to Utah.

Bowman, who spent her childhood between Colorado Springs and Santa Cruz, Calif., loves Steamboat because it’s a community that values its open space, its schools and its public institutions.

“People care about this place so much,” she says. “I don’t see us ever living anywhere else.”

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Courtesy transportation available

Photo: John F. Russell Story: Eugene Buchanan

B anjo - pickin ’ , B ack - crackin ’ , U nicycle - ridin ’ R enaissance M an

Von Wilson If Von Wilson won the lottery, he says he’d spend his time messing around with work horses. “That’s what I’d do,” says Wilson, who part-timed at Marabou Ranch this winter leading sleigh rides. “I’d drive ’em any chance I get.”

Thankfully, the local Renaissance man has plenty of other skills to fall back on, from coffee connoisseur and chiropractor to bluegrass banjo picker and closet rodeo rider.

Wilson, 47, used to raise work horses growing up in Craig in a third-generation ranching family. He put the pastime on hold for a spell when he moved to Steamboat in 1990 and co-founded coffee hot spot Mocha Molly’s with his wife, Molly.

The two have three grown children: Matt, 28; Carly, 26; and Wyatt, 19.

After selling the coffee shop in 1996, he went to chiropractor school in Oregon, graduating in 2000, and returned

to Steamboat to found Back Smith Chiropractic. The name is a play on one of his other hobbies, blacksmithing, which he pursues “whenever there’s work,” be it making railings, stove hoods, chandeliers or even toilet paper holders.

He’s also a “full-time diesel-conversion tinkerer,” as evidenced by his recently converted 1997 Ford Powerstroke truck seen driving across town, which he fills up at local restaurants. But not just any eatery.

“I’m a very big connoisseur of grease,” he says.

Wilson also counts unicycling among his unorthodox pursuits. He can make the wobbly ride up Buffalo Pass and down the Spring Creek Trail in two and a half hours from his house on Seventh Street. This winter, he also could be found riding up a snow-packed Blackmer Drive to the quarry and back.

“There are about four of us old farts

that do it in town,” says Wilson, crediting 12-year-old Mac Skov as his mentor. “It’s the best core-strengthening exercise there is.”

Locals get their core-strengthening exercise by swing dancing to his banjo playing. Arguably one of the best in the state, he’s played in about every bluegrass outfit in town, including local bands Quarter Moon, Ragweed and Old Town Pickers, as well as Northwest favorite Jackstraw during his chiro-schooling days.

But it’s back cracking instead of banjo playing that pays the bills, and he wouldn’t practice his trade anywhere else for the world. “My clientele here is absolutely the best you could hope for,” he says.

“Everyone is outdoorsy, in shape and truly in touch with their bodies. Thinking about practicing somewhere else would be difficult.”

So is imagining Steamboat without him.

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Photo: John F. Russell Story: Luke graham

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Locals

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J umping

through

all

the

hoops

Devin Borvansky It started when Devin Borvansky was 18 and grew into something that sometimes surprises even him.

But those who know Borvansky aren’t shocked about what he’s been able to accomplish as a volunteer coach who helps run a youth basketball program for fifththrough eighth-graders.

The program has grown by the same leaps and bounds his players display on the court. And it continues to churn out quality players who take life lessons home from the game, just as Borvansky did.

“I love basketball, and this is the purest form of it,” says Borvansky, a 2004 Steamboat Springs High School graduate.

“The kids still have that passion. I was 18 and didn’t know what I was doing. I found a few tournaments and began taking these 13-year-old kids to them.”

It almost didn’t happen.

Edith Davis 37 Years in Service

David Lyons 22 Years in Service

Stacey Rogers 20 Years in Service

Borvansky was stuck in a classroom at the University of Northern Colorado after graduating from Steamboat Springs High School.

“I was taking business classes,” Borvansky says, “and hating it.”

But what those classes did for Borvansky proved to be good for Steamboat Springs.

He started looking around and found a Fire Science Degree offered at Aims Community College in Greeley.

“Firefighting seemed like a great fit — the teamwork, brotherhood and camaraderie,” he says. “I’ve been playing sports my whole life, and it fit.”

While his work with Steamboat Springs Fire Rescue demands a full-time effort, he still finds time to help coach. It’s not uncommon to see him get off a shift at 7 a.m. and make an 8 a.m. tournament.

“He’s part of my family,” says Michael

Gordon Shelley 19 Years in Service

Larry Cook

Jeff Schankin 18 Years in Service

John Knoche 17 Years in Service

Leon Harrington 17 Years in Service

Steve Dunklin 15 Years in Service

Scott Cook

Nikki Webber 11 Years in Service

Dwain Harder 10 Years in Service

Cindy Keene 8 Years in Service

Alex Wolf 7 Years in Service

Joe Bird 7 Years in Service

THE

Arce, Borvansky’s lieutenant whose son Wyatt plays on one of Borvansky’s teams.

“I always tell Wyatt, ‘If you need something and can’t talk to me about it, you can talk to Devin.’”

Helping others is in Borvansky’s blood. He grew up in the Steamboat basketball program and says that more than anything, that experience taught him a lot about life. Without hoops, he says he wasn’t sure he would have made it through high school.

And the coaching on top of the firefighting workload?

Borvansky wouldn’t have it any other way.

“I love it,” he says. “It’s a good mental release. Sometimes with the fire services, you see the worst of people. When you get with the kids and play basketball, you see the purity of humans.”

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F rom

B ulgaria

with

love

Michael Stoyanov & Aneliya Plocheva Photo: matt stensland Story: Luke Graham

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Michael Stoyanov and Aneliya Plocheva admit they’ve had some luck.

Both born in communist Yambol, Bulgaria, both well educated at a university in Sofia, Bulgaria, and both set on making a life for themselves, the two moved to Steamboat Springs in 2003.

It was part out of necessity and part right out of “The Great Gatsby.”

“Our family and friends say we got lucky,” Plocheva says. “But my personal belief is our luck comes with hard work.”

The two met in Yambol, started dating and decided to come to the United States to start their own business.

At the time, Bulgaria was full of corruption and murders, with shootings and bomb explosions being the norm. Stoyanov, with a master’s degree in communications, could only find a job selling hot dogs during the graveyard shift at a gas station.

One day, Plocheva was sitting at a coffee shop when bullets filled the place.

“They started shooting everywhere,” she says.

“There was no justice.”

With friends in Steamboat, which reminded them of a resort back home, they arrived in Routt County with $1,000 between them. They worked any job they could, all in hopes of starting a business, a new life and a family.

In 2004, they bought Dreamboat Cafe at Old Town Hot Springs. That first year, they couldn’t afford to hire an employee, so Stoyanov worked from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. every day.

“We just had to make it,” he says.

A year later, they started A&M Services, a property management company. By 2009, the two were working with more than 100 properties in Steamboat. That same year, they had a child, Alexandra. Then they sold the Dreamboat Cafe and focused on expanding A&M Services.

By 2010, they added a vacation rental part to the business, creating www.retreatia.com and www.steamboatescapes.com.

“We’ve been really thankful to all our clients,” Plocheva says. “It took guts to hire us. We’re foreigners. But that’s why we love Steamboat.

They really gave us a chance.”

The two recently purchased a home and have been thinking of ways to expand their business, all while chasing Alexandra around.

It’s been a long and winding eight years, but the two aren’t done chasing the American dream.

“We’ve done very well and are happy where we’re at,” Stoyanov says. “But this is just the beginning for us. We’re well educated and young.”

Photo: matt stensland Story: Eugene Buchanan

F rom

the

T etons

to

the

Y ampa

V alley

Harry Martin For Harry Martin, co-owner of Steamboat Ski & Bike Kare, it’s the people who make Steamboat Springs such a great place to live.

“They’re incredible,” he says. “The whole community is just amazingly friendly and down to earth. It’s a great place to live.”

That sentiment is largely why Martin, who moved here from New Jersey from 1986 to 1988 to attend Colorado Mountain College’s Alpine Campus, returned for good in 1995. He’d spent seven years in hardguyville Jackson, Wyo., as co-owner of Hoback Sports, and yet something was missing. That something was community.

So in 1995 — with wife, Kim, now the director of Young Tracks, in tow — he packed his bags for Steamboat and began

raising a family and business. “We had just had our first baby, and our in-laws were living here, so it seemed a natural move,” he says.

Both have blossomed. Sixteen-year-old Foster now is joined by 9-year-old Willy in the Martin household, and Steamboat Ski & Bike Kare has grown as a family, as well. The store opened on 11th Street in 1995 and moved to its current location on Lincoln Avenue in 2004, two years after Mike Parra became co-owner. But it’s Martin’s persona that keeps customers and the 20 employees coming back.

“He’s my favorite local,” says store manager Derek Hodson. “He creates a sense of pride in being a part of his organization. Everyone who interacts

with him has a positive experience. Our community is better because he’s a part of it.”

One of the best ways to see that is through his support of local charities.

He provides discounts for members of Steamboat Springs Winter Sports Club teams, donates to almost every fundraising group that walks through his door and sponsors local races, events, trail-building programs and rides for children.

It’s the latter, of course — the kids in the community — that truly makes him smile.

“There’s just so much for them to do here,” says Martin, 46, who you’re likely to see in his 26-foot camper toting his own kids camping up in Hog Park. “It’s a great place for kids to grow up.”

Summer 2011 |

Locals | 41

Photo: John F. Russell Story: Mike Lawrence

S erving

those

who

serve

Rob Powers The first thing that Rob Powers wants you to know is that he does what he does — including volunteering as many as 60 hours a week and traveling four or five months each year — for one reason: gratitude.

“We’re doing this for our servicemen and women,” Powers says on a rainy May afternoon in his small, but vividly decorated, Steamboat Springs office. “We want to make absolutely certain that they know America cares.”

Thanks to the efforts of Powers and other volunteer leaders of American300 Warrior Tours, countless American soldiers around the globe know exactly that.

Powers organizes and leads several trips a year to U.S. military bases, in combat zones and peaceful areas, to improve the resiliency and morale of troops. He brings along Olympians — “It all started with Steamboat athletes,” he says — rodeo stars, country musicians, professional athletes and others.

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There’s a thorough vetting process for trip participants, Powers says, to ensure that those who come along know the trip is entirely about the troops, rather than participants’ own celebrity or fame.

“We go to hardship, remote combat areas,” Powers says.

The trips provide opportunities for wellknown people to make lasting connections with servicemen and servicewomen and to express their thanks in simple messages that can have profound impacts.

One of the many photos in Powers’ office simply shows, for example, a close-up image of two hands connecting in a firm grip. The photo was taken in a remote, combat-ridden location in the Middle East.

“We shook hands with guys who hadn’t shook hands with somebody in six months,” Powers says about that tour.

Steamboat Ski and Resort Corp. spokesman Mike Lane has traveled on

Warrior Tours with Powers and attests to the influence of the National Guard veteran at home and overseas. “He’s a truly wonderful representative of the community,” Lane says.

Powers, a father of five who makes his living announcing military and professional sporting events, such as marathons, moved to Steamboat Springs in 1990. He’s lived in the Hahn’s Peak area since 2002.

“I really savor my time up in Hahn’s Peak when I come home from a tour,” he says, citing the peaceful, quiet surroundings in North Routt County. “It’s such a contrast from having mortars drop around you at night.”

Learn more Visit www.thewarriortours.com, www.armedforces.lucashoge.com or the American300 Warrior Tours Facebook page.

I t ’ s

A ll

A bout

the

K ids

Heather Martyn School might be out for summer, as so eloquently put by Alice Cooper, but the Boys & Girls Club of Steamboat Springs is very much in.

Steamboat toddlers and teens (as well as their parents) can thank longtime local Heather Martyn for that.

Martyn, 37, founded the Boys & Girls Club of Steamboat in June 2009 at the George P. Sauer Human Services Center on Seventh Street to provide healthy, out-of-school alternatives to youths in town.

“I wanted to do something for the kids here,” says Martyn, who previously held various property management and real estate jobs. “A friend told me about a group that wanted the club started here, so we conducted a survey and needs assessment. After a year of legwork, we were able to open.”

Although it hasn’t been easy, Martyn’s never-give-up nature helped.

So, likely, did her connections in town.

Martyn moved here after graduating from high school in Sheridan, Wyo., in 1992 at age 18 “to be a ski bum.”

Hooked for life, she then moved back permanently after graduating from Colorado State University in 1996.

Her family ties to town run even deeper. Her grandfather, Joe Deurloo, ran a dairy where Steamboat Campground sits west of town on U.S. Highway 40 and later owned a car dealership and garage where Old West Steakhouse resides. Her father, Robert, lived here through high school.

Now Martyn — who lives with husband, Renn, and children Andrew, 14, Ryan, 12, and Lander, 8 months, on a ranch in the south valley at the base of Rabbit Ears Pass — is happy to give back to a community where she has so much heritage.

The club provides activities for youths ages 6 to 18, including sports, arts, crafts and educational programming, all for just $1 an hour or $10 per day (with the $25 membership fee). While Martyn still is soliciting funding for improvements, she’s pleased to report that the club has served nearly 900 kids since its inception.

“We had a few struggles at first, but we’ve put some great collaborations together with people in the community,” she says. “I’m thrilled with how it’s been received. Steamboat is a great community, and the people here are wonderful.”

Photo: Matt Stensland Story: Eugene Buchanan

Summer 2011 |

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O f

cycling

and

stage

races

Corey Piscopo Story and Photo: Matt stensland

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Corey Piscopo says his passion for cycling probably began as a kid who liked to fill up on ice cream.

Unlike most children, he felt he had to get a workout in and then reward himself with a treat. So he regularly rode his bike to the nearest Dairy Queen five miles from his home in Sanbornton, N.H. The other positives of cycling developed as he matured and went on mountain biking adventures in high school and raced in college.

“It just sort of grew from there,” Piscopo says. “It’s social; it’s exercise; it’s competition. It gets you into the outdoors.”

The 30-year-old moved to Steamboat Springs with Kristen Stemp in fall 2007. They now are engaged.

“We really were looking for the kind of lifestyle that Steamboat offers,” he says.

Piscopo landed a job in sales at Moots and quickly started to address some of the things that Steamboat lacked when it came to cycling.

“There are a lot of really talented racers and riders in Steamboat, and there wasn’t really a broad organization that focused on bike racing,” Piscopo says.

In 2009, Piscopo organized the four-day Steamboat Stage Race, the only race of its kind in Colorado.

The event attracted 305 riders, and as many as 400 competitors are expected to race this Sept. 2 to 5.

“I think the Steamboat Stage Race really put Steamboat on the map for being a big cycling community,” says Steamboat Ski & Bike Kare manager Derek Hodson, who is also a Routt County Riders board member.

Piscopo also created Steamboat Velo, a local cycling team that supports more than 20 members.

“It’s kind of been low key to start out,” Piscopo says. “That may just be my style.”

A cyclocross event hosted last summer only added to Piscopo’s reputation as being a major player in Steamboat’s growing cycling culture.

“It’s just like every ounce of his soul is about biking,” Hodson says.

“I don’t know if the guy sleeps.”

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Summer 2011 |

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E ccentricity

in

S teamboat

Irene Nelson

Photo: John F. Russell Story: Eugene Buchanan

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Locals

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If Irene Nelson, owner of Irene Nelson Interiors, had her way, she’d add her own special touch to town. The new bus shelters would better mesh with their downtown surroundings, and the city would bury power lines in local alleyways.

Nelson, 75, can’t help but offer suggestions for spicing up Steamboat. An eye for how things look is in her blood.

She does it for a living for people’s homes, and it’s her nature to do the same for the community she loves.

“I’ve been in town a long time,” she says. “In that time, I’ve seen a lot of styles and fashions come and go. Fashions usually have about a seven-year lifespan.

First, it was the artsy bungalow style, then Western, and then everyone wanted French chateaus. It’s fine to have all these styles, but you want something that’s timeless, especially in a street-scape. Styles should blend, or at least have some relationship with some other building style in the streetscape.”

If she has a quirkiness for getting designs right, be it for downtown or a dining room, it goes hand in hand with her own unorthodox arrival in Steamboat in 1970.

Hearing about Steamboat’s family friendliness while vacationing in Breckenridge, she traded her Opal GT for a yellow Sunshine Biscuit bakery truck and loaded up her four kids and two dogs for the move west from Chicago. When the truck broke down outside of Cheyenne, she stuck out her thumb, with brood in tow.

A lone acquaintance from Steamboat then drove to cart them over Rabbit Ears Pass to their new home.

Nelson’s design affinity got tested quickly as she soon found herself the owner of two quirky, fixer-uppers downtown. Her freshly transplanted kids, meanwhile, slept in the yard during the construction. “They were both wrecks, and I didn’t know a soul in town,” she says. “I’d feed dinner to anyone who helped me with the house.”

Adds daughter Cindy, who owns White Hart Gallery: “We moved from a country club environment in Chicago to sleeping in tents in Steamboat.”

Nelson then opened her interior design business and has been sharing her opinions while sprucing up people’s homes ever since. And even at 75, with five grandchildren, a business and home and garden to tend to in Fairview, she’s showing no signs of slowing down. In fact, feel free to offer her a hand if you find her loading furniture into her yellow moving van behind her office on Oak Street.

“Steamboat’s a great town,” she says.

“I live in a real neighborhood in a real community. There aren’t many places like it.”

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Summer 2011 |

Locals | 47

R eaching

out

to

today ’ s

youths

Jon Gagnon

Photo: John F. Russell Story: Joel Reichenberger

48 |

Locals

| Summer 2011

Jon Gagnon dedicated an entire day to a “Glee” marathon. He browses iTunes, searching for the latest trends in music and keeps a close eye on Facebook, Twitter and any other developing fad.

At 31, some might think those trappings of teenagehood would have passed him by, but Gagnon has dedicated himself to connecting to youths and doing so in ways they’ll understand.

Gagnon is a youth services pastor in Steamboat Springs, and while he prides himself in being up on pop culture, he’s equally focused on ensuring his connection to youths doesn’t bottom out at Lady Gaga.

Gagnon doesn’t have to look far to find ways to inspire those he works with.

He’s disarmingly forward about his own story and the life journey he took that landed a California boy in the middle of the Rocky Mountains.

“I went the way of the beast,” the San Diego native says about his middle school days. “I started using drugs when I was 12. I was basically a dopey dropout, and I went to rehab when I was 18 for overdosing.

I found God and gave my life to helping students get it and not jack it up.”

Gagnon says in his nearly two years in Steamboat — he took his position at Steamboat Christian Center in August 2009 — he’s found lots of things to love about Steamboat Springs and the Yampa Valley.

He and his wife, Tausha, and their two boys, Noah, 7, and Gavin, 4, have learned to love the outdoors.

They skateboard, hike and camp, and Gagnon has been carefully introducing his sons to the Bashor Bowl terrain park at Steamboat Ski Area.

It’s not a good run through the Maverick Superpipe that’s proved to be the best part of Steamboat for Gagnon, however. Instead, he insists it’s the job.

“To see them get it, for them to have a North Star or a vision for their life, when they get that, that’s great for me,” he says. “When they realize, ‘I could have much more than farting around town, drinking and getting high,’ when that light bulb goes off, that’s what keeps me going.”

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Summer 2011 |

Locals | 49

W orld

traveler

ready

for

ne x t

trip

Michael Savory Photo: John F. Russell Story: Mike Lawrence

50 |

Locals

| Summer 2011

Michael Savory knows a thing or two about packing up and leaving town.

Savory, a recent Steamboat Springs High School graduate, stellar student, multi-sport athlete and a leader of the Sailors’ Class of 2011, was born in California. He then moved with his family to Saudi Arabia; Texas; Alberta, Canada; England, outside London; back to Saudi Arabia — just before Sept. 11, 2001 — then to Madrid, Spain; and, finally, to Steamboat Springs, in time for seventh grade.

His father is in the oil business and worked on projects that would take about two years each, at locations around the world.

Savory’s travels didn’t stop after he arrived in Steamboat. He participated in an eighth-grade exchange program to Sweden and has joined mission trips to Africa and the Dominican Republic, with the United Methodist Church of Steamboat Springs.

He’s joining another mission trip this summer to Jamaica.

Even with all those stamps on his passport, the Yampa Valley is closest to his heart.

“Steamboat is definitely the place I call home,” he says.

But after about seven years here — his longest stint in one location — Savory, 18, is preparing for another big change of scenery.

He’ll begin his freshman year at Rice University in Houston in the fall to study chemical engineering. His parents, Kathy and Don, met at Rice and eventually married in its chapel. The couple celebrated their 35th anniversary in May. Savory says his latest departure is bittersweet.

“I’ve really enjoyed high school,” he says.

“It gave me a lot of opportunity and was a lot of fun.”

Savory participated in several extracurricular academic and leadership programs while playing four seasons of football and two seasons each of baseball and lacrosse.

Bob Hiester, his lacrosse coach and calculus teacher, says Savory brought similar attributes to both disciplines.

“The thing that has impressed me is how hard he works, both at mathematics and lacrosse,” Hiester says. “His persistence and hard work are as good as anybody I’ve had.”

High school Principal Kevin Taulman also has plenty of praise for Savory. “He’s a great role model,” Taulman says. “He’s the kind of high school student you want your kids to look up to and try to emulate.”

Savory says he’ll miss the local community.

“I really feel at home here,” he says. “Houston is the fourth-biggest city in the nation. I feel like I’ll get lost, like a little fish in a big ocean.”

No matter how big the ocean, odds are that this well-traveled Sailor will find his way.

Story and Photo: tom Ross

O ff to conquer N ew E ngland

Michaela Frias Michaela Frias looks forward to taking on the dual challenges of pursuing an Ivy League education and the equally competitive world of college ski racing when she packs her ski bags late this summer and travels to Hanover, N.H., to study and ski at Dartmouth College.

She hopes to major in international studies while hitting New England’s Winter Carnival Circuit as a cross-country skier for the Big Green. “I’m really excited about going to college,” she says.

“Everyone I met on the team was so nice.”

Brian Tate, Frias’ coach at the Steamboat Springs Winter Sports Club, says she is an intense ski racer but many people don’t pick up on it at first because of her quirky sense of humor and easy laugh. “She’s very, very competitive, and she’s surprisingly intellectual,” Tate says. “She has a lot of thoughts on world issues. And she has a unique sense of humor. She’ll throw you some curveballs.”

Frias loved Advanced Placement English and sociology during her senior year at Steamboat Springs High School.

But her advanced placement also pertains to Nordic racing. She attracted national attention in March 2010 when she captured a gold medal at the Junior Olympics in Presque Isle, Maine.

Things didn’t go as smoothly for much of the 2010-11 season as she battled fatigue and a mysterious malaise that held her back. Finally, it was determined she had been over-training and after dialing her workouts back in late winter, she stormed onto a Junior Olympic podium again in March in Minneapolis. She claimed second-place in the mass start 10-kilometer classic race, competing against peers from across the country.

Now she’ll do the same at Dartmouth, and it’s easy to predict how — hiding her competitive fire beneath her smile — she’ll make a name for herself in New England.

Summer 2011 |

Locals | 51

D oggone

good

times

Marianne Sasak

Photo: John F. Russell Story: Nicole Inglis

52 |

Locals

| Summer 2011

Marianne Sasak’s soft but firm voice floats on a warm spring breeze across her pasture west of Steamboat Springs.

“Katie, left.”

“Annie, come-bye.”

“That’ll do, Dot.” With quiet flicks of her hand and a watchful gaze, Sasak works her three border collie dogs around the flock of sheep as if she’s solving a puzzle. The dogs crouch and slink around the field, and the skittish sheep baa and balk, shuffling into the perfect spot.

After 10 years of training sheepdogs, Sasak says the dogs have taught her a few lessons, too.

“They have to learn to take the pressure off things,” she says. “Then the sheep relax.

It’s the same with people. You have to know pressure and release.”

Growing up in Southern California, Sasak always wanted to be a cowboy. Now, she’s the driving force behind the Steamboat Stock Dog Challenge, a Labor Day weekend event she started on her ranch eight years ago, which then moved to the Stanko Ranch as it expanded.

Ranch owner Jim Stanko, who has known Sasak for 20 years, says the event showcases Steamboat’s ranching heritage.

“She brought something new to Steam­ boat that reflects back to our agricultural image,” he says. “And agriculture is part of why people come here.”

The event attracts dog handlers and their animals from across the country and acts as a precursor to the Meeker Classic dog trials a few weeks later.

Sasak says she also is careful to incorporate education into the event: Announcers explain every movement on the field, and it serves as an outreach tool for local youths to learn about local ranching heritage and agriculture.

The Stock Dog Challenge isn’t the only outlet for Sasak’s ambition or business degree from the University of Southern California. In winter, she travels to stock shows with her clothing company, Steamboat Ranchwear.

Stanko’s wife, Jo, says Sasak’s insatiable drive turns whatever she does into a success.

“She’s very committed and lively,” she says. “We’re lucky to have her in the community to carry things forward with such energy.”

For Sasak, the drive for working her dogs is just cultivating the passion already present in them.

“They just live for it,” she says. “It’s so rewarding to take a dog that doesn’t have a job and give it one.”

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Locals | 53

Serving Steamboat Springs since 1988.

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Curtis J. Comeau, D.D.S., P.C. Steven Diehl, D.D.S., P.C. William R. Schwartz, D.D.S., P.C. 1475 Pine Grove Road, Suite 107 • Next door to Ski Haus • 879-1959 54 |

Locals

| Summer 2011

Investing in the youth of our community is a partnership that benefits everyone.

There are currently more than 20 Routt County kids waiting to be matched with an adult in our community. The need for male mentors and mentors in Hayden and South Routt is especially urgent.

If you are interested in volunteering your time contact us at

970-879-6141

partnersrouttcounty.org

Photo: John F. Russell Story: Brent boyer

H ooked

on

an

unlikely

career

Tim Widmer Tim Widmer could be the poster boy for Colorado Mountain College success stories.

The kid from Estes Park had the brains and the grades to go to any four-year school in the state. Instead, he chose CMC’s Alpine Campus, perched above downtown Steamboat Springs.

“I wanted to be a ski bum and still have the excuse of going to school,” Widmer admits.

Even his high school counselor tried to talk his parents out of letting him go to CMC. But the smaller classes of CMC and the small-town nature of Steamboat were simply too alluring.

He graduated with his associate degree and transferred to Colorado State University in Fort Collins, where he earned a Bachelor of Science in ecotourism. His dream of

opening an ecotourist lodge in Costa Rica was short-lived, so he returned to Steamboat and began working as a boot fitter and salesman at SureFoot. During the summer, he capitalized on his love of flyfishing by guiding for the former Steamboat Fishing Co. By 2004, Widmer had taken over as manager at SureFoot. He couldn’t have imagined the career move that would take place four years later when he was hired as assistant professor of the ski and snowboard business program at CMC. “I never viewed myself as becoming a professor,” Widmer says. “I love it mostly because I love the students. I know where they’re coming from.”

Widmer works with Michael Martin, director of the ski and snowboard business program, which is the Alpine Campus’

second-largest degree program, serving 125 to 150 students.

“The students we have are great,” Widmer says. “They’re open, willing to learn and excited about going to school.”

An accomplished fly-fishing guide with Steamboat Flyfisher, Widmer’s job still allows him to hit the river often. He teaches fly-fishing courses at CMC and has sold some of his fly patterns to Solitude Fly Co. in California.

But that water time has become a little more restricted. Widmer and his wife, Megan, are in the full throes of parenthood with their 1-year-old daughter, Maria. They can’t imagine raising her in a better place than Steamboat.

“As far as we’re concerned, Steamboat is forever,” Widmer says. “We just love it here.”

Summer 2011 |

Locals | 55

L ending

a

helping

hand

Joyce Hoekstra

Story and Photo: Joel reichenberger

56 |

Locals

| Summer 2011

Joyce Hoekstra came over Rabbit Ears Pass in February 1978 into what was a long, snowy winter. She didn’t give a moment’s thought as to whether she’d still be in Steamboat Springs 33 years later — not that day or any other, she says.

With the snowmobiling and hiking, the horse riding and car racing, where was the time to worry about something like that?

“That was almost half my life ago,” she says.

Hoekstra, 65, loves to get outside and can drop an antelope with one shot. She’s plenty adapt indoors, as well, remembering all the details of the day she bowled a perfect 300. She also can rule the pool table, a skill she picked up in 20 years as one of the owners of Golden Cue Billiards, the only pool hall in Steamboat. It closed several years ago.

In her time in town, Hoekstra has put down deep roots in the community, enjoying its outdoor activities but also embracing its people.

These days, Hoekstra staffs the customer service desk at City Market. She’s only been there five years, but in one way or another, she has spent all 33 of her years in Steamboat helping people.

Much of that has come behind a counter at various jobs across town and in her time at the Golden Cue. But plenty also comes away from work, with Hoekstra always quick to lend a hand to friends in need, often doing grocery shopping or helping with other errands.

“Whenever I’ve commented on what a good person she is, she just says, ‘Well, what are friends for?’” says friend Carolyn Rule.

P o o L s | F i t n e s s C e n t e r | WAt e r s L i D e s • Fitness Center • Exercise Classes • Waterslides • 25-Yard Lap Pool • Hot Mineral Pools • Rock Climbing Wall • Kiddie Pool (summer)

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970-879-1828 • www.oldtownhotsprings.org

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Locals | 57