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C a r e y • 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 Community Library Enters Frommer Contest Stanley Cup – Pro read about it on PaGe 7
Sports Oldest Trophy Stops in Town Page 3
My Lemonade Stand is for a Cause Page 6
Writers Conference Highlights Page 15
A u g u s t 2 4 , 2 0 1 1 • V o l . 4 • N o . 3 4 • w w w .T h e W e e k l y S u n . c o m
Healing and Consciousness Workshop By RIAN ERVIN
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he Art of Living Foundation will be hosting a workshop led by Swami Pragyapad, a renowned humanitarian and dynamic teacher, on August 28. Celebrating its 30th anniversary this year, The Art of Living Foundation is an international nonprofit educational agency that teaches breathing and meditation techniques to release stress. After hosting workshops in Boise, Pragyapad will travel to Sun Valley to lead a presentation on the use of breath, yoga and meditation in everyday life. Leslye Moore, a volunteer teacher and member of the national board of directors, explains: “The Art of Living Foundation teaches stress relief techniques to help individuals achieve inner peace and to help create a violence-free society.” The Foundation has centers in 152 countries, and is also associated with many disaster relief projects. They have a strong core of volunteers who travel the world to provide physical and mental relief as well as material aid service. The Foundation teaches specific breathing techniques that help to release well-being hormones that in turn reduce symptoms of anxiety, depression, and stress. “There is a lot of practical knowledge in this ancient wisdom that we bring into modern times,” says Moore. The Foundation is one of the largest volunteer-based organizations in the world, relying on donations and private and federal grants for funding. The August 28 workshop with Swami Pragyapad will serve as an introductory taste to the larger workshops that the Foundation provides, focusing on breathing techniques and yoga. “He is one of the coolest people I’ve ever met,” Moore says laughing. “He is very down to earth, funny, has the warm presence of a healer, and is delightful to be around.” Originally studying engineering at one of India’s top universities, Pragyapad drastically changed his career, choosing instead to pursue an altruistic lifestyle, traveling the world to teach healing workshops. He now serves as the international director for The Art of Living Foundation. His workshops typically draw crowds of thousands of people, and it is an exciting opportunity to have him present in the Wood River Valley. This is not an event to miss! The workshop will take place Sunday, August 28 at the Hailey Yoga Center, located at 91 E. Croy St., Alturas Plaza, from 7-9 p.m. Tickets are $10 and may be purchased at the door or online at http://secure.artofliving.org/event_details.aspx?event_ id=101218 tws
SPLISH SPLASH
ERC talks Blaine County Water Usage.
Read about it on Page 11
Flyin’ higher than an Eagle PHOTOS & STORY By KAREN BOSSICK
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rnie Butler didn’t know how he would feel once the paragliding wings caught air, lifting him up in the air for the first time since he was paralyzed parachuting at a World Championship competition. But he hardly had time to get nervous. The wheels on the off-road wheelchair he was riding barely spun two full revolutions before he was up in the air soaring over Bald Mountain. Butler and pilot Nick Greece, who stood behind the wheelchair, coasted along the thermals on the unusual contraption, which looked like a dune buggy—or even the magic car from “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang”—to those watching from the ground below. And then, just as suddenly as they’d taken off, Butler felt the chair bouncing through the sagebrush field adjacent to the River Run parking lot. “Whooo!” yelled an elated Greece, a World Cup paragliding champion. “This guy has been under canopy over 6,000 times and this is his first time under canopy since 1995. And I got to share it with him!” “I didn’t know how I would feel back under canopy,” added Butler, as he caught his breath. “But the launch went so smoothly and we were in the air so quick. It was so comfortable I felt as if I was flying in a chaise lounge. I felt like I’d come home.” Butler was one of five men who took part last week in a program offered through Sun Valley Adaptive Sport’s
Higher Ground program for disabled veterans. The Higher Ground Flight School was designed to test an off-road paragliding chair with big mountain bike tires designed by ABLE Pilot Mark Gaskill, a former Navy corpsman, and the mechanical engineering department at the University of Utah. Their hope: To offer wheelchair users a vehicle to become independent pilots. The Flight School, which received a $10,000 Quality of Life grant from the Christopher and Dana Reeve Foundation, is the first of its kind, said Sean McEntee, Higher Ground’s program manager. The veterans who answered the call could have stepped out of “The Right Stuff,” given their motivation and drive. Brent King was an Army officer at Fort Benning, Ga., when a rope on the obstacle
LEFT: “Thank you so much, man,” Ernie tells pilot Nick Greece as they review video of the flight they finished a couple minutes before. RIGHT: Nick Greece in flight
Brent King gets a push across the field at the bottom of Baldy as he learns to manipulate the controls on the paragliding wing.
course whipped and threw him 22 feet, breaking his back 17 years ago. He was 24. Now a general contractor in Spokane, Wash., he uses adaptive equipment to snow ski and waterski. And he plays wheelchair basketball and tennis. But the thought of paragliding has him juiced. “We may have to sit. But we don’t have to sit still,” he said. Darol Kubacz was paralyzed during a training accident at Fort Knox, Ky., when he swerved his motorcycle to avoid getting hit by another vehicle. He snow skis, waterskis, sand kites and scuba dives. He’s climbed Mount Kilimanjaro using a hand cycle he operated while lying on his stomach. And he just returned from Tanzania where he helped build toilets for disabled people. But his lifelong dream has been to fly. He and his bride of six weeks recently took a paragliding school together. And he had built a wooden platform with pneumatic tires to practice controlling paragliding wings when Flight School came along. “Paragliding’s something I can do with my wife and brothers.” said the Phoenix
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