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s t a n l e y • F a i r f i e l d • S h o sh o n e • P i c a b o Camas Lily Days festival this weekend read about it on PaGe 11
A Little Night Laughter starts tonight at nexStage Page 9
Summerfest Kids Carnival in Hailey Saturday Page 8
Dr. Fairman talks about supplements Page 13
J u n e 1 , 2 0 1 1 • Vo l . 4 • N o . 2 2 • w w w.T h e W e e k l y S u n . c o m
Betsy Pearson, artist and friend Photo & Story By KAREN BOSSICK
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Elkhorn resident Tom Swanson heads up Baker Peak during an Idaho Conservation League outing.
Hiking Series begins June 4 Photo & Story By KAREN BOSSICK
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urn a hike into a plein air painting outing, a meditation session or an exploration of moose territory. The Idaho Conservation League is taking a new tack with its hikes this year by assigning a theme for each hike. Each hike will be led by a leader who is a thematic expert, said Brett Stevenson, who heads up the Ketchum ICL office: “Our hike leaders are inspiring locals with knowledge and skills to share. It will be a fun and interesting way to see some spectacular spots in our backyard.” Here’s the lineup: Saturday, June 4 Picabo Hills: Watercolor Painting with Dayna Gross, Silver Creek Preserve manager and artist. The hike will include a short hike up Mosquito Hill—an ideal spot for painting. Hikers should bring watercolors or other painting or drawing supplies. 2 miles. Easy to moderate. Saturday, June 18 Trail Creek: Riparian Exploration with Hannes Thum, Community School biology teacher. Hike off-trail in moose territory while enjoying an interesting discussion about the intricacies of riparian habitats. 5 miles. Easy to moderate. Wednesday, July 13 Timber and Federal Gulch: Pioneer Mountains with Mike Stevens, Lava Lake Land & Livestock president and Pioneer Mountain Group co-founder and managing member. Mike will discuss the heritage, geography, and conservation efforts of the Pioneer Mountains. The group may decide to continue up nearby Grays Peak. 8 miles, 2,500-foot elevation gain. Moderate to difficult. Saturday, July 23 Mill Lake: Meditation in the Mountains with Lacey Segal, Healing Touch/Theta healer and meditation teacher. The hike to Mill Lake offers a look at the geological process that helped shaped the Sawtooth Mountains. Lacey will offer a meditation beside the barren moraine that cradles Mill Lake. 4.5 miles, 1,000-foot elevation gain. Easy to moderate. Saturday, July 30 Headwaters of the Big Wood River: Water of the Wood River Valley with Dr. Wendy Pabich, a local hydrologist. Pabich will lead hikers to the source
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hen a black man in his 70s found himself homeless, Betsy Pearson issued him an invitation. “Come live with us,” she said. The man, who had been a maitre’d, ended up living with Betsy and her husband Bob for 30 years, jumping at every opportunity to pay them back by donning his white coat and draping a towel over his arm for the couple’s frequent dinner parties. The spacious yard tucked in the woods surrounding the four-bedroom, four-bath log home Betsy designed off Lower Broadford Road in 1972 never lacks for human companionship, whether it be for the family’s large family reunions or Monday night volleyball matches that lure teenagers and 73-year-olds alike. And when Betsy’s friends give her a moment, you’ll find this 89-year-old woman painting a landscape to benefit the Sun Valley Summer Symphony, the animal shelter or another charity. She even climbed aboard a scaffold at 82 to paint a 10-foot tall painting for the Sagebrush Arena’s annual Cowboy Ball. Pearson will be honored for her contributions to the Wood River Valley on June 19 when she and three other women are inducted into the Blaine County Heritage Court. Like the other three, she was not born in the valley. But she fast fell in love with it and the valley fast fell in love with her. “She just jumped in when she got here, joining boards all over town,” said her son Brad Pearson. “She always told me one of the great blessings of her art was she was allowed to give back. And she has a big heart that doesn’t limit family to blood. She’s always taking in someone who’s fallen on hard times.” Pearson was born in Salinas, Kan., the daughter of an insurance man who treated his family to summer vacations at a cabin in Minnesota. After getting an art degree at the University of Kansas, she followed her older sister to New York where she got a job as art director at Lord & Taylor, a high-fashion Fifth Avenue department store. That eventually led to a job at the New York Herald Tribune where she wrote and illustrated a syndicated column on parenting for 17 years in the days when no one else was doing that sort of thing. Eventually, she parlayed those columns into two books full of tips you don’t find in the newspaper every day even today. “ABCs for Mothers,” for instance, tells how to restore crayon points by warming
Betsy Pearson, who has even illustrated the menu for Cristina’s restaurant, has prepared hundreds of casseroles for the large number of people who have ended up at her dinner table.
the crayons in the sun or oven, shaping plunking the gut bucket bass on “Five foot the points and putTwo Eyes of Blue.” And ting the crayons in the they played together, as coronation Time freezer. It tells how well. The Heritage Court Coronation starch in a baby’s bath“Betsy was always will take place in a ceremony open water forms an invisible organizing modern art to the public at 3 p.m. Sunday, June coating on the skin that days where we’d go to 19, at The Liberty Theatre in Haicombats heat rash. museums and then we’d ley. But it was art that go home and throw More stories to come defined Betsy’s life. She paint at the canvas,” Watch for stories in the upcomsold expensive pieces recalled Brad. “She ing weeks on the rest of the 2011 in Greenwich, Conn., didn’t even bat an eye Heritage Court Divas: Theresa where the family lived. when I told her I wanted Richards of Hailey, Maxine MolyShe is still painting and to put a pole vault in the neux of Picabo and Joanne Davis of selling her landscapes. backyard. And she never Sun Valley And it wasn’t too many blinked when you told years ago that she her you were bringing wrote and illustrated six people over for din“A Sun Valley Journal,” a charming book ner. She cooked dinner every night for 63 depicting paintings of Sun Valley icons. years until my Dad died and it was effort“I was born to draw. From the time less for her to feed an army.” I was little I was happiest when I had The board of Croy Canyon Ranch something to draw with,” she said. “And recently threw a luncheon honoring I love this country. I’m a soil girl. I love Pearson’s Heritage Court nomination. the field and the animals. The vistas have Board President Jeanne Cassell said always drawn me.” Pearson, a member of the founding board Pearson fell in love with her late husof the continuing care community, has band Robert when he walked her univeralways been vigilant in reminding board sity sorority house wearing a crisp Navy members of seniors’ needs. uniform but she didn’t begin dating him “She’s always saying, ‘Have you called until she got to New York. so and so?’ And she doesn’t mean just to “I had more fun with him than anyone say, ‘Hello.’ She means, ‘Have you asked else and that was it,” she said, of her them for money?’” Cassell said. husband, a newspaper man who wrote Marcia Duff says a Jackson Hole friend speeches for Presidents Franklin Roosencouraged her to look up Betsy Pearson evelt and Harry Truman while in the as soon as she moved to the valley. “Now Navy. she’s one of my dearest friends. Not only The couple had three children—Brad, is she a wonderful artist but she has who edited “Heartland” magazine; Ridley, mastered the art of friendship. She knows who writes best-selling detective novels, how to connect. And she’s such a good and Wendy, a teacher. listener.” tws They made music together—Betsy
SUMMERFEST KIDS CARNIVAL
JUNE 4 • 1–5 PM