2014 Locals by Steamboat Pilot & Today

LOCALS S K I

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Don Gore

on Gore is a motorhead, an aficionado at jumping rope and he runs, bikes, works out and eats well so he can enjoy his biggest passion: skiing. At 83 years old, Gore just wrapped up his 25th season of instructing at Steamboat Ski Area, once again notching 100 days on the slopes. “My goal is to be in my 90s and still teach, and I think I can make it,” says Gore, who was still skiing in May. “It’s kind of a source of pride that I can perform with the younger guys, and in some cases, outski them.” When he can’t outski them, Gore says he can at least offer some tips on form and technique. “Don is an inspiration to all of us,” says Steamboat Snowsports School Director Nelson Wingard. “Even at 83, he is fit and strong. Every day he’s out on the mountain training, working on improving his skills and teaching techniques and always looking for ways to grow. He wants to share his passion for skiing, and that is contagious to all ages.” Before landing in Steamboat, Gore worked as a ski patroller for 25 years at Washington’s Crystal Mountain. He first learned to ski when he was 25 years old and on leave from the Navy. Gore jumped in by heading for Berthoud Pass with rented gear and socks for gloves. “That day I fell 22 times, and I’ve never had more fun in my life,” he says.

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John f. russell

1 0 0

Getting better with age: Don Gore with his 1974 camaro.

His first ski area job was at White Pass in Washington as a lift operator. While there, he learned from twins Steve and Phil Mahre, who would become American skiing legends. “I learned a lot from those 9-year-old kids,” he says. Gore got to ski race alongside some of the best, including Steamboat’s Buddy Werner. He remembers finishing one race in one minute and 15 seconds, 30 seconds

slower than the local skiing icon. When the resorts close for the season, he moves on to his other passion: restoring a 1974 Camaro. “It’s been a 10-year project,” Gore says, adding that the hot rodding helps him feel young again. “This year, if I can get it running, I’m going to drive down Lincoln Avenue just to look around and show it off. I feel like I’m 23.” — Matt Stensland

M O D E R N

M I S S

M A N N E R S

Molly Hayes John f. russell

f you peeked into the window of Mambo Italiano at lunchtime May 29, you would have seen 100 fifth-grade students filling the tables — the boys in collared shirts and ties, and the girls wearing their best skirts and dresses. Sitting with backs straight, napkins in their laps and passing the salt and pepper to the right, they were practicing table manners they’d learned in the classroom from a woman they affectionately call Miss Molly Manners. Molly Hayes has been teaching etiquette classes in Steamboat Springs since she and her husband, Todd, moved here in 2010. She does so for local fifth-graders at no charge. “I look at this as community service,” she says. Ever since growing up in Tampa, Florida, Hayes has been intrigued by etiquette, often reading manners books by Emily Post and Amy Vanderbilt in a hammock by the lake. But she is quick to point out that her etiquette classes are the antithesis of the cotillions of her mother’s generation. They aren’t “stuffy” or “country clubby” but fresh and very applicable to modern-day life. “It’s light, fresh and well received by parents and kids,” she says, her Southern accent fitting for someone teaching social graces. “We teach real-life skills they can relate to. I also teach good personal habits. If we feel good about ourselves, we’ll treat others better.” Local parent Kim Brack, who helped create the program at Soda Creek Elementary with teacher Cindy Gantick, says the students love Molly “She has a Southern, genteel charm, and the kids really engage with her.” Fifth-grader Morgan Graham is also a big fan. “She’s really kind for teaching us better table manners,” Morgan says. “It takes a lot of courage to teach kids manners because we are a rowdy bunch.” Since founding Molly Manners (www. mollymanners.com) in 2010, Hayes, a former teacher with a master’s degree in educational leadership, has expanded beyond Steamboat into the international market. To date, Molly Manners has business license agreements in 37 locations, including Singapore, the United Arab Emirates, the Philippines and Guatemala (people can purchase her business model, which includes curriculum, training and support). Hayes has developed three age-specific sets of curricula — “Nice is Right” for ages 3 to 6, “Kool to be Kind” for ages 7 to 11 and “The Young Sophisticate” for ages 12 to 17 — with lesson plans ranging from how to properly set the table and make good first impressions to interview skills and tips.

Mind your Ps and Qs: Molly hayes at riggio’s italian restaurant.

“Good manners are all about treating yourself and others with kindness and consideration,” she says. “And it always starts with you — showing that consideration for yourself and others.” In Steamboat, she teaches character education and etiquette through the city Parks, Open Space and Recreational Services Department’s after-school program and enrichment programs at Bud Werner Memorial Library. She also offers classes at Rex’s American Grill & Bar and Steamboat Christian Center. While she and Todd recently purchased the Brown & Brown

Agency (now Steamboat Select Insurance Group) and also are busy raising polite children, Ruby, 12, and Bruce, 9, she still has time to appreciate her new home. “I love the people and sense of community here,” she says. “Everyone looks out for each other. And I love that my kids can be outside without me worrying.” She also treasures family time outdoors — hours spent on the slopes and learning to fly fish. “You have to immerse yourself in the Steamboat culture of getting outside,” she says. “We love it.” — Lisa Schlichtman Summer 2014 | Steamboat living

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good

boss

( and

neighbor )

Debbie Aragon

hey go for bike rides and hikes after work, pick up trash along a mile of highway on Rabbit Ears Pass and spend hours coming up with an office-wide theme for Halloween costumes. Working at the State Farm office in Steamboat Springs is more than a 9-to-5 daily commitment, and those employees say that’s thanks to the woman at the top, Debbie Aragon, who stands out as a Steamboat local in part because of the vibrant office she leads. Aragon came to Steamboat in 1996, chosen to take over the local State Farm office. From the then-small town of Millikin, between Loveland and Greeley, Aragon started with State Farm immediately after high school, a 17-year-old working with a company more than twice as big as the town she grew up in. She was playing softball in the summer when she met her husband-to-be, John Aragon. “I was a pitcher and he was the umpire. I felt like he was being very generous with his calls,” she says. “Anything

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close was a strike. I thought, ‘Wow. He’s either a lousy umpire or he likes me.’” The couple, married in 1981, had three boys — John, 31, Jeff, 30, and Brian, 25, — who all now live in Texas. Aragon was working at a State Farm office in Greeley when she interviewed to take over offices in Wyoming, Fort Collins and Longmont. Finally, it was Steamboat that came through. Her children weren’t sold on the idea at first — “I don’t like Steamboat. I don’t like boats and I ain’t going,” Brian, then a second-grader, declared initially. A ski trip on a bluebird powder day sold them, however, and the Aragons have been eating up all Steamboat has to offer ever since. Aragon makes a point of bringing that attitude to her office, and her employees have learned to love it, helping the agency be selected as one of town’s best places to work in 2012 and 2013. The employees have done the Steamboat Mad Mudder run together, the STARS Biking the Boat ride, the Steamboat Color Run and the Tour de Steam-

Joel Reichenberger

All in the family: Debbie Aragon with her staff.

boat. They participate in after-work activities weekly during the summer and have shared more than a few happy hours together. It all makes one comment from Aragon make perfect sense: “I haven’t posted a job ad in years,” she says. — Joel Reichenberger

Ben Ingersoll

A river runs through him: Bill Chace and his dog, Fim, take a break along the Elk River.

T he

river

keeper

Bill Chace

here are few places Bill Chace would rather be than along the banks of the Yampa or Elk rivers — or any of the valley’s streams — doing the job he’s enjoyed for more than 30 years. Chace spent 24 years volunteering and working with Yampa Valley Fly Fishers. With the group, he built a set of skills and connections that would make him one of the most knowledgeable people in the region when it comes to maintaining, repairing and sustaining local rivers and streams. River keeper is Chace’s title, one that he wears proudly on the breast of his longsleeved green shirt at job sites. But the job takes on many forms, and Chace is the first to say his work — and passion — can’t be done singlehandedly. It’s a team effort, he says, that requires everyone from geomorphologists to hydrologists and riparian ecologists. Experts like these have made Chace a valuable asset in keeping the Yampa, Elk and other waterways healthy since moving to the valley decades ago. “I was able to transfer the knowledge I

received volunteering to serve the retiring baby boomers buying larger parcels of land,” Chace says. “It’s been a wonderful experience. It’s a job you love to get up and go do.” Chace’s team collects data on things such as riparian habitats, water depth and width as well as riverbank stabilization. From there, they develop a plan to change the contracted piece of river from its existing condition to a more productive, sustainable body of water. The river keeper’s job goes well beyond how the water flows or how many cubic feet per second it’s pushing. Sure, Chace keeps a watchful eye on these details to ensure fish populations are thriving and recreationalists are happy. But take a trip along the banks of the Elk with him, and he’ll point out the smaller, unnoticed things that make his job so valuable. A ripple could signal a job his team completed last fall, keeping the river from eroding its bank and overflowing into a field. A downed tree or cluster of sticks often means beavers; nothing breaks his

heart like seeing a tree he planted decades prior go to waste. “It’s like losing a child,” he says. These days, Chace works almost exclusively in the private sector, maintaining rivers that run through ranchers’ properties. And age, he says, is making him more of a consultant. Landowners might contract him to work a season or multiple years. He’s worked on stretches a mile long and those only a hundred yards long. His work varies, but water never will change, he says. “It’s not always perfect,” he says. “Water does exactly what water wants to do.” He understands that no matter how much he and his team poke around Yampa Valley riverbanks, nothing beats the real deal. A river’s natural, untouched beauty is what continues driving him to the water. “It’s the communion I have with nature,” he says. “Being successful in any of the natural resources doesn’t come from having money or power. It comes from communion and knowledge.” — Ben Ingersoll Summer 2014 | Steamboat living

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W I L D E R N E S S

Elaine Dermody

laine Dermody could fill several books with the text of her adventures. The 76-year-old has climbed Mount Whitney — the highest summit in the contiguous United States — twice, and she still loves backpacking in California’s High Sierras. And when she and her husband retired early, they traveled across the country in a Fleetwood Flair Class A motor home for six years, returning home to Florida for only a couple of months each year. They bought the biggest motor home they could that still would be allowed in national parks, and when they couldn’t get the RV in, they’d hop on their bikes. Along the way, they found Steamboat Springs. And it was a handful of llamas that finally motivated them to move here in 1997. “When I found out I could get out into the wilderness and not have to carry a heavy backpack, that’s when I told my husband we were moving,” says Dermody. For many years, Dermody has put off retirement to protect the places where people go to disconnect from their cellphones, televisions and computers. In 2000, she started Friends of the Wilderness, a volunteer organi-

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zation that helps to maintain the Sarvis Creek, Flat Tops and Mount Zirkel wilderness areas. When the group started, the focus was on educating visitors about wilderness regulations. They’d inform campers where they could and couldn’t camp and help clear trash and other things left behind (Dermody once found a toilet seat at an abandoned campsite). After years of fires, beetle-kill and other forest challenges, the volunteers started to help maintain trails. “I feel strongly about having a place to go where you can connect with nature,” Dermody says. “Our souls need a place to go to regenerate our spirits, and nature is where that is. It’s important to our survival.” Dermody considered scaling back her volunteer work to focus on her painting. But she kept going back to the wilderness. Her reach went national five years ago when she helped start the National Wilderness Stewardship Alliance, an organization focusing on getting more volunteers out into the wilderness. Today, she still loves to wake up at 10,000 feet in a wilderness area and seeing volunteers continue to protect the wild places.

scott frAnZ

C H A M P I O N I N G

Woman of the wilderness: elaine Dermody at fish creek falls.

“I couldn’t have done it without help,” she says. “Federal funding was being held back, and there were less people. I could see that we as volunteers were making a difference trying to keep the wilderness pristine for future generations. That’s the goal.” — Scott Franz

John F. Russell

Head of the class: Kipp Rillos standing in front of the intern class of 2014.

I n t e r n a l l y

grat e fu l

Kipp Rillos

hey say you spend the first 10 years in Steamboat trying to figure out how to leave and the next 10 how to stay. After 28 years living here, Kipp Rillos doesn’t look like he’s going anywhere. Following his move to Steamboat in 1986 after graduating from Colorado College, Rillos started out managing Beckett’s Drug Store, now Gondola General, on the mountain at night while skiing during the day. Approached by Colorado Mountain College to teach in the Ski and Snowboard Business Program, Rillos dove in, racking up experience in various programs. He spent four years as an adjunct instructor with CMC, seven years teaching full-time at Hayden High School and five years at Soroco High School before moving on to his current position as a business teacher at Steamboat Springs High School. A third-generation teacher, Rillos always considered education as a potential career. In moving to Steamboat and educating youths, he saw teaching as a way to build a

life here while still being able to pursue his interest in business. Upon landing at Steamboat Springs High School, Rillos was greeted by a small internship program started by his predecessor, Gail Dudley. Tasked with reinvigorating the program, Rillos again jumped in. Starting with a mere 25 students, the program now has grown to host 81 interns, including 14 working at Yampa Valley Medical Center. Rillos has seen the community embrace these interns with open arms. “We have a great business and professional community that is very supportive and diverse for our size,” Rillos says. “I’ve rarely had anyone say they couldn’t take on an intern.” Danica Moss, the high school’s college and career counselor, has watched Rillos’ program build throughout the years. “It’s phenomenal,” she says. “His program gives kids the opportunities to explore their interests to see what they want to do beyond high school. They need experience

to know what they want to do, and his program does just that.” Internship sites include the hospital, vet clinic, Steamboat TV18, Cafe Diva, Integrated Community, Steamboat Pilot & Today and more. His interns have logged more than 750 hours at 67 job sites in the past year alone. Rillos considers the program’s achievements to be primarily at the student level. In exploring their interests, students have gathered experience in all kinds of fields, with Rillos by their sides. They’ve designed buildings, improved business systems, published photographs and stories and seen babies born. The excitement and enthusiasm surrounding the program is infectious, he says, and “impossible not to get caught up in.” “I think all of the interns come out the other end a little more directed as a result of the experience, either toward or away from the path they were exploring,” he says. “Both are a win.” — Emma Wilson Summer 2014 | Steamboat living

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L e avi n g

i n

good

ha n ds

Dr. Dave Williams

his summer marks a milestone for Dr. David Williams, 68. On July 1, he’ll retire from Steamboat Medical Clinic, which he co-founded with Dr. John Sharp 39 years ago. “The medical community in Steamboat in 1975 was very different,” Williams says. “There were no ER docs, OB-GYNs, pediatricians, anesthesiologists, ENTs, urologists, dermatologists, plastic surgeons or ophthalmologists. The family docs, one surgeon, one internist and one orthopedist covered the emergency room, delivered babies — I’ve delivered over a thousand — did C-sections, took care of the infants and children, administered anesthesia and more. As more specialists arrived, the scope of family medicine gradually evolved and became what it is today.” His colleagues remain flabbergasted at his earlier duties. “I can’t imagine doing the roles he did 30 years ago,” says Dr. Dave Niedermeier, who has practiced alongside him for the past six years. “He’s an incredible asset for this community, and a constant voice of reason, wisdom and calm in the face of constant challenges in an ever-changing health care environment. He and Dr. Dudley have built an extraordinarily positive clinic environment.” Despite the earlier, multi-directional arm pulling, Dr. Williams wouldn’t have it any other way. After graduating from Colorado College and the Baylor College of Medicine, and completing his family medicine residency at the University of Utah, Dr. Williams moved to Steamboat Springs with his wife, Holly, in 1975, where he’s lived in the same house ever since. Shortly after co-founding the center, he brought on Dr. Jim Dudley, a close friend from his residency days, building the clinic into today’s successful, seven-person, multispecialty practice. While attending to the community’s medical needs, he also helped raise children Ashley, 38, and Brad, 35, both Boetcher Scholars who went on to attend MIT and Harvard, respectively. Ashley, he says proudly, is now a bio-engineering researcher for Stanford University and professional dancer, and Brad is an attorney in Denver who ran this year’s Steamboat Marathon. Throughout all this, it’s Steamboat’s down-home community that has kept him here so long. “Practicing in this wonderful small town has allowed me to know, listen to and learn from a great many people, both as patients and friends,” he says. “For a town this size, the menu of opportunities for intellectual stimulation, multiseason sports, arts and entertainment and commu-

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John F. Russell

thi n gs

Say aahh: Dr. Dave Williams in front of the Steamboat Medical Group, which he co-founded in 1975.

nity participation is astounding. And I’ve been exceedingly lucky to share it all here with my soulmate and wife, Holly.” Looking ahead to the next, more leisurely chapter of his life, Dr. Williams might be putting down the stethoscope but he’s hardly slowing down. In May he traveled to Iceland before road biking in France, and he plans to continue such pursuits as skate and Alpine skiing, biking and running (he’s competed in the 10K Bolder Boulder more than 20 times). “I

love the things this aging body continues to support,” he says. And he can do it all knowing that the legacy he created is in great hands. “I’m proud of the energetic, smart and compassionate younger physicians who are carrying on the practice,” he says. “Another remarkable thing about this town is the breadth and depth of the medical community here. It could be the envy of much larger cities.” — Eugene Buchanan

JOHN F. RUSSELL

G I V I n G l I T T l e M O O n A l I T T l e l O V e

laura lamun

aura lamun is a lot of things: a successful businesswoman, talented performer and loving wife. She knows what she wants from life and isn’t about to let anything get in her way. In the past 20 years, she’s built a national following and international business that reflects what’s important to her, and more than 120 products that she’s proud to have stamped with the name little Moon essentials. But when it comes to describing herself, she prefers to use a different word. “I’m a natural-born wild child,” she says. lamun owns little Moon essentials, whose products range from Dream Cream to Tired Old Ass Soak. The common theme is that they’re all natural and use aromas to address certain everyday problems. Some are used to reduce stress or pain, others lead to a restful sleep and some reach out to other human conditions. The idea came to her in a dream. Back in 1984, while working a natural food store in Boulder, she had a dream about a warming ginger mineral bath called letting Go

that would help her chronic eczema. The next morning, lamun, a studied aromatherapist and herbalist, made a bade with a combination of salts and essential minerals, with organic ginger as its main healing herb. Shortly afterward, she began selling the mixture, and the product took off. After moving to Steamboat Springs, she continued to grow her product line and build her wholesale and retail business. “The key is that the products make me feel better, and they make my customers feel better,” she says. The company’s success reflects lamun’s personality in the products as well as the names she’s branded. Her most popular product, Tired Old Ass Soak, was meant as a joke but grabbed customers’ attention. “You have to have a sense of humor,” she says, adding that a lot of people bought the soak as a joke but then became hooked. While lamun enjoys making products that make people feel better, she doesn’t like to think of herself as a businesswoman. The business took care of itself in the early years,

she says, riding a wave of success to the top. But it wasn’t immune from the recession; some of her biggest wholesalers, a category representing 70 percent of her business, just stopped buying. So she was forced to downsize and even feared closing her doors. But she bounced back, and today, her company once again is a success story. Still, while she’s truly loved her times at little Moon, she admits that after 20 years, she is ready to move on. She recently put her business up for sale and hopes to find a buyer who will bring new ideas and energy. Meanwhile, she’s also pursuing her first love, music, as a blues singer along with her husband, Dave Allen. She currently sings in three bands, including the husband-wife Allen-lamun Band as well as Pink Floyd and neil Young tribute acts. With offers to perform overseas, she says running a business is simply too time consuming. “I started singing when I was 5, and I’ve always seen myself as an entertainer,” she says. “That’s what I really want to do.” — John F. Russell

Get Ready to Enjoy the Outdoors

at Hot Stuff Hearth & Home

1625 Mid Valley Dr. #3 (behind Staples)

Steamboat Springs

(970) 879-7614 www.hotstuffhearth.com

Summer 2014 | Steamboat living

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Tom Ross

Routt County roadie: The new Strings Music Festival production manager Steve Chambers has signed mementos from AC/DC, Tina Turner, Pearl Jam, the Rolling Stones, The Who, Joe Walsh, the Red Hot Chili Peppers and more from 20 years on the concert trail as a stage rigger.

Lik e

ro l l i n g

sto n e

Steve Chambers

he story of how Steve “Elkie” Chambers came to Steamboat Springs is a familiar one. He first arrived on a college ski trip, loved it, and then came back to become a horse wrangler. That’s where it veers: He left to become a roadie for the Rolling Stones, dated one of their daughters, toured with AC/DC and U2, surfed with Eddie Vedder and finally married one of Tina Turner’s dancers and settled back down in Steamboat to live happily ever after. Fresh off working as a rigger for the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ Super Bowl show in February, Chambers assumed his new role as production director for Strings Music Festival. He calls it the perfect fit for him in a town he has loved for decades. “This is absolutely it,” he says. “I feel very, very fortunate.” Chambers’ job includes handling the technical aspects of Strings performances as well as booking the non-classical performers. His contacts in the industry are helping and he’s already working with Los Angeles talent booker Jeff Apregan for 2015 shows.

After a dozen years touring with Tina Turner, Chamberss wife, Solange Guenier Chambers, meanwhile, is teaching ballet and hip-hop at Elevation Dance Studio. Chambers grew up outside Cleveland, Ohio, where he raised 4-H animals and rode horseback. During a break from college at the University of Cincinnati, he came to Steamboat and signed on with legendary cowboy Pat Mantle leading horse trips. “For a time, I took my baths in the Yampa River,” he says. He later helped Mantle with his elk hunting trips and stuck around skiing for a while before heading back to Cincinnati for school. There, he started rock climbing, a skill that eventually landed him with the Stones. After returning to Colorado to work at Pyramid Ranch with Doug McIntyre, the phone rang. “They’d just put their first phone line in, and the first time it rang it was Jake Berry, production manager of the Rolling Stones,” Chambers says. They needed a “climber” (a roadie who rigs lighting and backdrops

above the stage). “When I got back from packing out an elk, they told me that Berry wanted to know, ‘What do I have to do to get this elk boy on a plane to Miami?’” The Stones’ South American VooDoo Lounge Tour was just starting and Chambers was launched on a career he could never have imagined. “My first day, I was in charge of deconstructing this giant cobra snake,” he says. “I thought it was going to be one trip around the world, but it went on for 20 years,” he adds. Chambers toured with The Who, the Eagles, became a surfing companion of Eddie Vedder’s and rescued Alicia Keys from a complicated made-for-TV show on the Great Wall of China. The stories are never ending, and yes, he really did date Stones guitarist Ron Woods’ daughter, which led to hanging out with the band. Now, Chambers is hanging out at Strings in Steamboat and making the most of his music industry connections to lure notquite-as-famous artists our way. — Tom Ross Summer 2014 | Steamboat living

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G ivi n g

th e

h e art

Ed and June MacArthur

hirty-five years after arriving in the Yampa Valley — after meeting at Colorado State University in the late ‘70s — Ed and June MacArthur are still changing the face of town and its heralded Steamboat Springs Winter Sports Club through their ceaseless generosity. Their interest in the club started when their two sons joined and they saw first hand the quality of coaching and mentorship it offered. “They were taking our prized possessions into the outdoors and really had a moral commitment to the kids,” Ed says. “The development and growth we saw in our boys was amazing. They focus on creating great people, not just great skiers.” Ed and June wanted to preserve that atmosphere for future generations to enjoy. “I have a granddaughter now that I want to get the same benefit that her dad did,” Ed says. So they did what they could to help support it. With equipment from their construction business, Native Excavating, they helped build as much as they could for the town, from Howelsen Hill’s summer ski jump and weight room to the aerial jumps at their Bald Eagle Lake south of town. “We had the

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water, the materials and the equipment,” he says. “The community has been great to us, so there’s good reason to give back.” While Ed and June are modest about their accomplishments, their generosity has not gone unnoticed. “They’ve very quietly and effectively assisted our youth and community in many ways,” says fellow SSWSC parent Jeanne Whiddon. “They see needs and then step up to the plate with no fanfare or need to draw attention to themselves.” The MacArthurs’ philanthropy isn’t just limited to sports. They donate their time and money to local schools and such nonprofits as the United Way and the Strings Music Pavilion. When asked about his philosophy on giving, Ed says, “I don’t think it’s an obligation — it’s something people should do because they want to. There are enough nonprofits in this town that everyone should be able to find something that’s a hot button for them.” Perhaps the biggest testament to the work they’ve done for area youth is the adults the community has created, from Olympic medalists to successful business owners and genuinely concerned citizens. And for

the MacArthurs, it’s the whole town that’s made that possible. “If there’s a need for something here, everybody shows up to the table,” Ed says. “That’s pretty spectacular.” — Dan Tullos Dan Tullos

from

Flying high: Ed and June MacArthur, in front of the fruits of their labor at Bald Eagle Lake.