sun Hailey
•
Ketchum
•
Sun Valley
•
Bellevue
•
the weekly
Carey
•
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
Bellevue’s Labor Day Festivities Start Saturday Page 7
6 Days of Free Music Begins Tonight Page 9
Maricich On Raising a Healthy, Drug-Free Family Page 21
A u g u s t 2 9 , 2 0 1 2 • V o l . 5 • N o . 3 5 • w w w .T h e W e e k l y S u n . c o m
Eh-Capa Bareback Riders perform Saturday.
Wagon Days Jam Packed from Rodeo to Duck Race
ABOVE: Teitge’s Model of the Universe gazebo tracks the movement of the planets. It started with a couple of steel bands to which Teitge attached the skin. Teitge said he would ultimately like to see the gazebo end up in a public place so everyone can enjoy and learn from it.
U
Wednesday
6 p.m.—Historian Ivan Swaner presents a free talk on the Wood River Valley’s mining history at Ketchum City Hall.
Thursday
5:30-7:30 p.m.—Artist Tom Teitge signs copies of the 2012 commemorative Wagon Days poster in Ketchum Town Square. Bluegrass band Dewey, Pickette and Howe provide live music.
continued, page 27
read about it on PaGe 4
Teitge’s Creativ ty
PHOTOS & STORY BY KAREN BOSSICK
p to 17,000 people are expected to flock to Ketchum this weekend for the 45th Big Hitch Parade on Saturday. And one thing they can practically count on is not having any wet stuff, even though locals wouldn’t mind getting a little rain or snow to douse wildfires to the south and north. “We’ve had only one major rain and a couple of sprinkles in 54 years,” said organizer Heather LaMonica Deckard. This year’s Big Hitch Parade, which starts at 1 p.m. Saturday, will feature a number of interesting entries, including 12 mini-mules pulling a miniature wagon and a plethora of historic wagons. Ralphie the Mongolian camel, who made his debut last year, will be back with his roommate—a bison—alongside. And the historic Lewis Ore Wagons pulled by an authentic 20-mule jerk line reminiscent of the Borax wagon teams will bring up the rear. “The parade draws a huge, huge crowd and I like the idea that everything is horse drawn or on horseback. That 20-mule team they have to pull the ore wagons is marvelous to watch,” said Penny Hodges, a Buhl woman who will drive a “people puller,” which she takes camping in the Stanley Basin and Smiley Creek area. “It opens, and both sides roll up,” said Hodges, who is pastor of the Methodist church in Buhl. “It’s neat because you have all the conveniences of home. You have a bed—you’re not sleeping on the ground. You can close it in like a sheep wagon—I’ve insulated it with half-inch-thick insulation. It even has a porta-potty and, at my age, that’s pretty important at night.” This year’s Wagon Days Labor Day celebration is packed with events, including the National Finals Rodeo, the Great Wagon Days Duck Race and a classic car auction. Here’s what’s on tap:
See Andy Warhol’s Annie Oakley at Broschofsky Galleries During Friday’s Gallery Walk
LEFT: This year’s Wagon Days Poster art. BY KAREN BOSSICK
T
om Teitge can’t help but draw comparisons to the eccentric professor in “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.” Like that professor, he has surrounded his Hailey home with a slew of intriguing inventions. Among them: an iron butterfly with doorknob antennas and a bicycle chassis that hovers above the door to his workshop; a Model of the Universe gazebo, which sports the constellations on the ceiling of its blue dome; and an eagle-eyed mask crafted out of sculpted steel and lawnmower engines that guards the northwest corner of his roof like a figurehead on the bow of a ship. Teitge’s “Swords into Plowshares” mural—one of several that he’s painted in the Valley over the years—graces the P.M. Brown building on River Street in Hailey. And he’s penned a kaleidoscope of posters for the Northern Rockies Folk Festival, as well as logos for the City of Hailey and Blaine County. Now, for the first time, Teitge has been chosen as the artist for the commemorative Wagon Days poster. “It’s a piece that most local residents will recognize,” said Wagon Days organizer Heather LaMonica Deckard. “It’s ‘White Knuckle,’ a piece of art that has hung in Atkinsons’ Market in Ketchum as long as I can remember.” “White Knuckle,” a work of historical realism, depicts men trying to brake the Big Hitch ore wagons for which the Wagon Days parade is named on the steep, winding road from Boulder City. One man is pulling the brake for all he’s worth;
another is trying to slow the wagons by pulling on a rope wrapped around trees. “I’d rather starve to death than be bored to death,” said Teitge. “Hence, I focus on unusual things that are of great interest to me.” Teitge, who came to Sun Valley to ski 35 years ago, has lived by the motto “Don’t Fence Me In” since a young child growing up in Tacoma, Wash. He started his art career by copying Donald Duck comics, a practice which segued into drawings of warplanes, watercolor portraits, realistic paintings and, finally, comic book-like and real-abstract artwork influenced by the psychedelic poster art he saw in San Francisco during the Sixties. “Posters are my favorite things to do because you have a clear sense of what you’re supposed to convey. And, I’ve always had a love affair with the form of letters,” said Teitge, who studied molecular biology at Stanford University. Just as his drawing took on many forms, so did his three-dimensional work. Model airplanes gave way to modifying cars and boat building as he helped his father—an airline pilot and machinist—build a wooden boat in their yard. And building forts in the woods around his home gave way to building homes out of wood and steel parts he salvaged from demolition projects. Teitge has built six houses from recycled material, including a solar home in Hailey and homes on Kauai, Vashon Island and the Columbia Gorge.
continued, page 11
“I’d rather starve to death than be bored to death. Hence, I focus on unusual things that are of great interest to me.” -Tom Teitge
Intermountain Pro Rodeo Association
Finals Rodeo Sat. & Sun. Sept. 1 & 2
7 p.m., Nightly, at the Hailey Rodeo Park
{see page 3 for details}