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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
Muffy Davis Vies for a Gold Medal Today Page 3
Camels, Bison and everything in between at this year’s Wagon Days
There’s Music in the Air, and Some of It Is Free Page 7
Hagerman Corn is Ready - and you can be too Page 10
read about it on PaGe 4
S e p t e m b e r 5 , 2 0 1 2 • Vo l . 5 • N o . 3 6 • w w w.T h e We e k l y S u n . c o m
Battle of the Blades It’s Back! STORY & PHOTOS BY KAREN BOSSICK
Fritz Peters hands out popcorn at Thursday’s back-to-school assembly for teachers.
Teachers Get a Pat on the Back and a Pep Talk STORY & PHOTO BY KAREN BOSSICK
T
eachers got a pat on the back and a pep talk last week as they prepared to return to classrooms this week. School Superintendent Lonnie Barber and others honored teachers like Ken Mecham, who has taught school for 40 years at Carey, and Cindy Ashliman, who has taught third grade for 35 years at Hailey Elementary. Then he showed teachers a viewer’s condensed version of “The Ron Clark Story” as they munched on popcorn in the new Wood River Performing Arts Center at the Community Campus. The movie stars Matthew Perry as a real-life teacher who found a way to help “the losers” in a school in Harlem out-excel even the honors class. Clark’s book topped The New York Times bestseller list for 13 weeks and he now as an academy in Atlanta, Ga. “I teach you to learn. You teach me to learn, and together we learn to love learning,” Clark told his students. Barber told teachers that the story was about a person who sees his job as a calling, rather than a profession from which to command respect, a job to pay the bills or a cross to bear. “Ron Clark, because of his calling, changed lives. And he didn’t just change lives for the year he was in those students’ class. He changed their lives forever,” he said. “No kids are losers. All have challenges. It’s up to us to help them get through those challenges. Imagine what would have happened to those students if they’d never met Ron Clark.” The Blaine County School District is journeying toward “a world-class student-focused center of learning,” Barber told the teachers. “What we are is one of the best school systems you’ll find anywhere, not just in Idaho,” he said. “What we are is a roomful of people who care about kids.”
By the numbers…
The Blaine School District has about 3,200 students and nearly 400 staff this year. Forty percent of the students receive free or reduced-cost lunches. The school installed 440 new computers this year. The school received more than 1,800 applications for jobs this past summer.
Then and now
Assistant Superintendent John Blackman and Debi Gutknect, director of student services, put the years in perspective as they honored teachers who were marking their fifth,
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C
ortney Vandenburgh was just another doctor slinging a stethoscope. Then Gia Guddat put an umbrella in her hand and Lisa-Marie Allen sent her spinning. Now, Vandenburgh is a twirling maven about to make her debut on the Sun Valley ice Cortney Vandenburgh rink to the tune of tries a few tentative Mary Poppins’s “A steps on the ice with Spoonful of Sugar pro Andrei Khvalko. (Makes the Medicine Go Down).” Vandenburgh will be one of nine amateurs skating in the Battle of the Blades… It’s Back!, which takes place at 8 p.m. Saturday at Sun Valley’s outdoor ice rink. Most have skated little, if at all, up until now. But for the past couple of weeks they’ve been skating with Sun Valley’s ice pros under the tutelage of Allen and Guddat, whom former professional ice skater Nick Maricich says are among the tops in the figure-skating industry. “They’re two of the most professional people that I know of in the business,” said Maricich. “There are very few people who know as much as they do.” Indeed, Allen—a 1980 Olympian—was the 1997 American Open Professional Champion, 1990 World Professional Champion, two-time U.S. Free Skating Champion, three-time U.S. Ladies Silver Medalist and a featured star for The Ice Capades and a variety of other productions. A national technical specialist, Allen received an Emmy for choreographing the opening and closing ceremonies of the 2002 Winter Olympic Games in Salt Lake City. She was also the associate choreographer on the film “Blades of Glory” starring Will Farrell and a choreographer for a TV special starring Scott Hamilton. And, she just landed a 2012 U.S. Figure Skating gold medal in dance. Guddat, who used to skate pairs with Olympic skater Gary Beacom, has created Sun Valley Summer Ice Shows for 16 years, as well as many of the Sun Valley Figure Skating Club’s shows. A double gold medalist in freestyle and dance, Guddat also choreographed the Disney On Ice show for seven years, Nancy Kerrigan’s “Christmas on Ice” and “Halloween on Ice,” and last year’s “Kaleidoscope” show for Fox TV. And she just coached three local skaters to national titles competing against 400 of the best skaters in the nation at the 2012 U.S. Figure Skating National Showcase. Last year they took on a bunch of people who were tops on skis and in other fields but had little or no experience on ice skates for the inaugural Battle of the Blades put on by the Sun Valley Figure Skating Club. “Some of these people are learning a completely new sport,” said Allen. “Some began hitting the ice in May—as soon as they were chosen for the competition. Miles Fink Debray, for instance, has skated two hours every day since. Others—like Kaitlyn Farrington, who just got back from snowboarding in New Zealand, and Erin Rheinschild, who had foot surgery last
spring—will only have a few weeks to prepare for the show.” “People are finding a new inner strength they didn’t know they had. They’re conquering fears,” added Guddat. “All of those who participated last year said this was the best thing they’ve ever been involved in—they got to reach out and meet a new community. And the skating rink here in Sun Valley is such a huge part of this community.” Allen and Guddat played to the personalities and strengths of each competitor. Keith Perry, for instance, has eschewed skates for golf clubs throughout his life, so they came up with a comic golf routine on ice for him. Twenty-four-year-old Miles Fink Debray, who won a couple of FIS giant slalom races last winter, is very athletic so they gave him a cute boyfriend routine in which he performs several lifts. The Elephant’s Perch’s Bob Rosso? Think suave Frank Sinatra-type. Ketchum firefighter Lara McLean will skate to “Disco Inferno.” Community School teacher Hannes Thum, who has a predilection for the ‘80s, will do a number from that era. Kaitlyn Farrington will do a Britney Spears medley. Erin Rheinschild, who heads up Sun Valley Adaptive Sports, will do a new twist on “Swan Lake,” extreme biker Billy Olsen is doing a routine loosely based on “Pulp Fiction” and Dr. Vandenburgh will do her number about helping the medicine go down. There will also be a tribute to Herman Maricich, who taught everybody from Lucille Ball to the first batch of kids that later became the Sun Valley Figure Skating Club. Community School student Joyce Chan will perform the skating slinky that won her a 2012 U.S. Figure Skating National Showcase title. Four ensemble skaters will perform to a new single that Tyia Wilson is releasing. And the Sun Valley Suns hockey team will do a twist on the movie “Slap Shot.” It’s the latter bunch that is actually the most difficult to choreograph and coach, said Guddat. “They’re used to being on ice, but they’re not trained in figure skating, so it’s like talking Chinese to them,” she said. “We didn’t realize they don’t pay attention to the music. And they’re kind of (freaked out) by the spotlight,” Allen added. With their credentials, both Guddat and Allen could have worked anywhere. Guddat says she fell in love with Sun Valley because she grew up in Canada—Toronto, to be exact. “I felt like I was living in a meat locker—it was always cold there. And hockey rules. I came here one summer and realized I could skate outside in the summer. There’s nowhere else you can do that. And I like the mountains and hiking. After being in big cities and on the road all the time, it’s nice to come to a small town like this.” Allen, who used to star in shows in the 1980s, moved here four years ago to work with the highest ranking competitive skaters, training them how to jump higher and rotate more cleanly. This rink is more nurturing for the creative side than most rinks with their four walls closing in, she said. There’s more elbowroom on the ice here. Skaters get to learn from the stars who perform in Sun Valley’s ice shows. And local skaters have a built-in audience from Sun Valley’s guests 12 months of the year so they get comfortable skating in front of others.
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Tom Crais, M.D., F.A.C.S. The Valley’s Only Full-Time, Board Certified Plastic Surgeon
See Page 3 for our SePtember SPecialS