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Sun Valley Center’s CART Dash and Street Party in Ketchum this Saturday Page 3
Parry Explains Math that is Out of This World Page 7
Caritas Cajun-Style Fundraiser Was a Blast read about it on PG 6
Letters of Apology from 3 Local Youth Page 12
S e p t e m b e r 1 2 , 2 0 1 2 • Vo l . 5 • N o . 3 7 • w w w.T h e We e k l y S u n . c o m
Friedman Celebrates 80th Year everyon
e’s in vi
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Last year’s Fun Run Winners.
Meals on Wheels 5K Fun Run/Walk BY KAREN BOSSICK
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ometimes the Meals on Wheels truck looks like a little road runner beep-beeping its way around the Valley as it delivers more than 15,000 meals a year to housebound seniors and disabled people. This Saturday, children and adults are being asked to do a little road running—or walking—themselves in the Third Annual 5K Fun Run/Walk for Meals on Wheels. Support is crucial, as Meals on Wheels has seen the number of meals it serves double in the past year, said Kimberly Coonis, who oversees the service. The run/walk beings at 11 a.m. at the Senior Connection at 721 S. 3rd Ave., in Hailey. It then follows a guitar-shaped path through the Foxmoor and Deerfield subdivisions near Wood River High School before returning to the center. Registration starts at 10 a.m. Or participants can register early at blainecountyseniors.org. The run/walk will be followed by music and arts and crafts vendors. Lunch and beverages from a beer and wine garden will be available for purchase. Raffle purchasers will have a chance to win one of two $1,000 or one $500 gift certificates offered by Atkinsons’ Market. Other raffle prizes include four dinner-and-ice-skating show tickets from Sun Valley Company, a month membership to Zenergy, and a Scottevest. Tickets are $3 each, four for $10 or 10 for $20 and can be purchased online or at the Senior Connection. Prizes will also be awarded to the first-place men and women between the ages of 18 and 60 and to the firstplace over-60 and under-18 winners. Meals on Wheels is served free of charge to qualifying seniors. Blaine County’s Meals on Wheels cover one of the largest areas in the state. Its area stretches almost from Craters of the Moon National Monument east of Carey to Smiley Creek just south of Stanley. One truck runs south and the other north, serving between 50 to 100 meals at a time four days a week. Chef Steve Johnson packages hot home-cooked meals like lasagna, roast beef or turkey for each trip. He also prepares sack lunches of pastrami sandwiches, soups and salads for those who request them for later that day or the next. One need not be a senior to take advantage of them. Meals on Wheels also delivers to disabled people, as well as those who have had a hip replacement or are receiving chemotherapy or other medical treatment and need temporary assistance. “We’re providing them with good
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Jim Perkins, president of the Blaine County Pilots Association, says he loves Mike Rasch points out historic photos depicting the rugged patch of grass looking at Idaho’s topography when looking down from 500 feet. that comprised Friedman Memorial Airport when it opened 80 years ago. PHOTOS & STORY BY KAREN BOSSICK
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he crowd swarmed around pilots “like flies around a honey jug,” when a WASP-motored Zenith aircraft and other aircraft began landing at the new Friedman Memorial Airport on May 14, 1932. Pilot Jim Perkins hopes the crowd will do some swarming again this week when the World War II B-17G bomber dubbed “Sentimental Journey” takes up residence at Friedman Memorial Airport in Hailey. The bomber—one of five such bombers still flying—is offering tours and rides Thursday through Monday in conjunction with the airport’s 80th birthday celebration on Saturday. The free Airport Appreciation Day from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. will include free burgers and drink, airplane rides, kids’ activities, giveaways and a display of vintage and unique airplanes, including experimental and home-built aircraft. “The Flying Fortress was here five years ago for the airport’s 75th anniversary,” said Friedman Airport Manager Rick Baird. “For air buffs, getting close to and talking to pilots is pretty exciting.” Friedman Memorial Airport, named for a German merchant who had died six years earlier, was dubbed “the most beautiful airport in Idaho” in the Hailey Times when the airport was dedicated on Saturday, May 14, 1932. “The view of the valley from the south end is one of entrancing beauty,” the article said. Boy Scouts had hauled rocks away from
the three-quarter-mile runway. Others had filled in ditches. Pilots didn’t have any trouble locating the runway since it was located along what was then Highway 93 and the Oregon Short Line railroad tracks. The unexpected arrival of so many “birdmen” from around the nation, state and neighboring cities “aroused the greatest enthusiasm… all were enthusiastic in praise of the beautiful airport,” the article said. The pilots were greeted by a great compass a hundred feet in diameter and Hailey spelled out with whitewashed rocks. Johnny Bolliger’s improvised band provided music while others intoned Walt Whitman’s “O Pioneers” and three air bombs were fired. A former Chief Justice was among the speakers. The airport would accommodate those who “live farther back in the interior,” prophesized one pilot, recounting how injured miners and the snowbound had been rescued by air in other parts of the state. “Of special interest to the citizens of Hailey was the fact that the airport is practically in town,” said Perkins, noting the irony of how yesterday’s citizens welcomed the airport’s proximity while some today would prefer to move it. “The message to me is the significance of this airport opening.” “It’s important to the community’s economic well-being,” agreed Baird. “It’s a very busy mountain airport by anybody’s standards.” Indeed, the airport has always been
acknowledged to be the second busiest airport in Idaho though the 210 acres it sits on is considered relatively small compared with the average airport, which sits on 600 acres, said Mike Rasch, who manages Atlantic Aviation. Atlantic Aviation, which sits south of the commercial airport, handles general aviation, such as private aircraft, Federal Express, firefighting aircraft, and air ambulance. It’s one of the busiest fixed-based operations in the country, especially in early July when Herbert Allen invites hundreds of the world’s top business, political and media leaders to his Allen and Company confab at Sun Valley. Atlantic Aviation’s 65 staff members will field up to 130 Gulfstream and other jets in a single day during that week. “Valets” park so many jets they look like a gaggle of playing jacks from the air. The staff greets the arrivals with free newspapers, including the Wall Street Journal, USA Today and The Weekly Sun. They offer milk bones for their dogs and accept linen to wash in their industrial machines. And they take orders for take-out from Cristina’s, Full Moon Catering, Lorna Kolash and others that will be ready for the aircraft owners when they depart. Atlantic Aviation’s 2600-square-foot hangar is designed to withstand five feet of snow on the roof, a wind shear and an earthquake at the same time. Its steel girders are an inch thick compared with other hangars, which have
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