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James Balog Breaks the Ice this Thursday Page 3
Jody Stanislaw on How to Make Healthy Habits Stick Page 5
Jamie Canfield reviews Tom Waits latest CD
Today is the last day for early registration for the Boulder Mountain Tour read about it on PaGe 12
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J a n u a r y 1 8 , 2 0 1 2 • V o l . 5 • N o . 3 • w w w .T h e W e e k l y S u n . c o m
Olympian2 Trades World Cup Circuit for Sun Valley Slopes
and helping coach young racers on Sun Valley’s alpine ski teams. “I assist coaches in any way I can be ooming downhill 94 miles per hour most helpful,” said Mendes, who acon skis three inches wide? Not a companied the J3 team to Park City for problem. their first meet of the season and joined Climbing to the top of a cliff and back the J1 and J2 at their camp in Colorado down? Ho hum. before the season started. “Maybe I offer Tiptoeing across a balance beam? another perspective for a young racer who Sheer fun. isn’t quite getting the drills. Mostly, a lot It was only when Jonna Mendes of kids just want to know where I was at climbed to the top of a high-dive, staring their age—what kinds of things I was doat the pool below as if she were Greg Louing at their stage.” ganis that she came face to face with fear. In fact, Mendes was living the ski “The U.S. Ski Team coaches would take racer’s dream when she was the age of us rock climbing and cross-country skiing, partly to make us more athletic, part- those enrolled in the Sun Valley’s ski and snowboard programs. ly to make us uncomfortable. The idea The Santa Cruz, Calif., native—now was to teach us that we were capable of 32—started skiing at age 4 in South more than we thought,” recalled Mendes. “For me, the high-dive was terrifying—I’d Lake Tahoe where her father worked as a landscaper during the summer and never do that again.” It’s precisely experiences like these that plowed snow during winter. She joined make Mendes an asset to The Community Heavenly’s junior program at age 5. And at 8 she joined the race team. School and the Sun Valley Ski Educa“I had gone around the gates a couple of tion Foundation as the two organizations times and I loved it. It’s what the big kids attempt to build the new Sun Valley Ski did and, when you’re little, you want to do Academy. what the big kids do,” she said. Parents and young racers alike want to At 13, Mendes was one of six American know what it’s like to be at the top of the boys and girls invited to represent the ski racing world. And Mendes was there United States at an international compefor 20 years, earning a bronze medal in tition in Italy. The team spent two weeks the Super G at the 2003 World Champitraveling to resorts in Italy, Switzerland onships in St. Moritz. She also won four and Austria. U.S. titles in giant slalom and downhill, Mendes got the travel bug and she two Junior World Championship silvers realized for the first time how good she and competed at the Winter Olympics in was as she skied with teammates Sarah Nagano and Salt Lake City, where she Schleper and Caroline Lalive. posted the top U.S. women’s time at the “I was so excited to go places I never Snowbasin downhill. would have gone otherwise,” said Mendes, Now she’s writing recruiting letters who traveled and trained to aspiring skiers and snowboarders with the ski team three years before she made the team. “And I met friends from all over—Australia, Canada, Japan—people whom I’m still friends with to this day.” One of those friends was Picabo Street, who grew up racing with the Sun Valley Ski Education Foundation. “I loved competing with Picabo, though not everyone felt the same,” said Mendes. “If you know Picabo, you know she deld 8-month-o mands a lot of atten1 ir e th d ntain. ’Toole an Dollar Mou and tion. But she was and Will O at t sb e u p h r ar e C r h agic des, faste and still is one of the Jonna Men ave already hit the M ck, clamoring to go h lo best skiers in the son Declan a chip off the old b is And Declan other says. m continued, page 13 faster, his PHOTOS & STORY BY KAREN BOSSICK
Z COURTESY PHOTO: LAETICIA JOURDAN
H’Sao Concert Saturday in Sun Valley BY KAREN BOSSICK
H
’Sao (say “ah-shhh-ow”) brings its unique African/Western music to the Sun Valley Opera House on Saturday as part of the Sun Valley Center for the Arts Winter Performance Series. The concert starts at 6:30 p.m., this Saturday, Jan. 21. IF YOU GO “People are Cost: Individual tickets for H’Sao are just going to love this group,” $20 Sun Valley Center for the Arts members, says Kris$30 for non-members tine Bretall, and $10 for students The Center’s 18 and under. Director of Get Your Tickets: To Marketing and purchase tickets or for Performing Arts. “Their a more information, visit cappella songs www.sunvalleycenter. are amazingly org, call 726-9491, ext. 10, or stop by The Cengorgeous, and ter in Ketchum. when they add Sponsored In Part in keyboards, By: The 2011/2012 drums, guitar Winter Performing and bass, they Arts Series is sponproduce dance- sored in part by Boise able music State Public Radio. that’s a mixture of jazz, pop, gospel, soul and R&B, with strong African roots. I guarantee that they’ll have people up on their feet and likely dancing in the aisles!” H’Sao got its start in Chad, a former French territory in Central Africa, when siblings Caleb, Mossbass, Taroum and Israel Rimtobaye began singing in the church where their father was pastor. Lacking the money to buy instruments, they developed a distinctive and proficient a cappella style. As they began performing publicly in the mid-1990s, they added Charles and Service Ledjebgue to the group. In March 2001, H’sao was selected to represent Chad at a festival in Ottawa, and the band relocated to Montreal that summer. Invitations started pouring in—Montreal International Jazz Festival, Festival Nuits d’Afrique, Francofolies de Montreal, Festival des Musiques du Monde. H’Sao has filled concert halls in Sweden, Ireland, the United States, Colombia, Canada, South Africa and Australia with vibrant African rhythms and hopeful words. While in the Wood River Valley, H’Sao will be doing a school residency, performing at Woodside, Bellevue, Hailey and Hemingway elementary schools. tws
Jonna Mendes, who took to Baldy Monday morning with Community School Headmaster David Holmes, says it didn’t feel that fast racing downhill at 94 miles per hour. It’s only when you make big turns that it feels scary, she said. While Europe’s mountains are bigger than those in the United States, the snow there is not as good, she added: “Skiing in Europe made me appreciate the snow we have in the West.”
“I assist coaches in any way I can be most helpful. Maybe I offer another perspective for a young racer who isn’t quite getting the drills. Mostly, a lot of kids just want to know where I was at their age — what kinds of things I was doing at their stage.” –Jonna Mendes
don’t miss the bcrd’s 16th annual galena & the trails
Winter Benefit! sat. January 28 5:30 p.m. • sun Valley inn, limelight room
bcrd.org
For reservations, visit for easy secure, online ticket/table purchase. Questions? call Kris stoffer at 578-5455.