Kongsberger Legends

 Rob put a substantial amount of work into his lovely and humorous speech at the KSC 70th anniversary party and it deserves to be retained and reread at your leisure. Here is the text of the entire talk. Thank you, Rob, for these inspiring words about our past and current legends and their place in the club's history!

A talk on the occasion of the 70th anniversary of the Kongsberger Ski Club.                    

National Nordic Museum, September 22, 2024                            

The Kongsberger Ski Club has been for seventy years one of the more distinguished ski clubs in North America. Through the efforts of its members and former juniors who learned to ski there it has notably advanced the cause of Nordic skiing. KSC founders Olav Ulland and Gus Raaum were fixtures on the international jumping circuit, as competitors and officials, between them for over fifty years. They were both Olympic Chiefs of Jump, Olav in 1960 and Gus in1980. Kongsberger icon Gunnar Hagen headed the jumping team of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. Gunnar and Olav in 1936 were members of one of the more distinguished Norwegian jumping teams in pre-war history, which included Olympic medallists Birger and Sigmund Ruud. The Yugoslavs invited the Norwegian team to Planica where they had just completed the largest hill in the world. They anticipated one of the Norwegians would set an official record over 100 meters. Olav Ulland’s first ever jump over 100 meters the prior year in Italy had not been recognized because of bodily contact with the ground. When Norwegian Olympic gold medalist Birger Ruud fell on his first jump, a very long one, the Norwegian team leader unsuccessfully tried to change the format, then withdrew the team from competition. Upset Yugoslavs pelted the team with snowballs, desecrated the Norwegian flag and Gunnar reported fisticuffs! The team was not competing during what is regarded as the world’s first ski flying event. A young Austrian successfully jumped over 100 meters, becoming the first to officially do so. 

It takes far more than heroic and illustrious founders of a ski club to make that club thrive. We have with us tonight, some skiers whose accomplishments have burnished our club’s reputation and inspired new generations of skiers since the time of the club’s inception. We also have in attendance those who have been absolutely fundamental to the building and the maintaining of the modern cabin and ski courses of our club. We would like to recognize them individually. I will ask those mentioned to stand briefly, but no applause please.  We will have that chance at the end.

Ragnar Ulland arrived from Norway already a skilled ski jumper, but his Uncle Olav was of considerable help in further refining his technique. Ragnar is in his own category tonight; he is one of two surviving charter members of our club. They met to found the club in Olav’s house in West Seattle in 1954. Ragnar was the first Kongsberger Junior to win a United States junior national championship.  He was a master of the Leavenworth jumping hill, one of the great hills in the United States, that occasionally hosted international events often featuring the best jumpers in Norway.  He was a fan favorite there for his style and his long, sustained jumps. Ragnar held that hill record at Leavenworth tied with one of the leading Norwegians jumpers, Arne Hoel.  The week prior he had jumped considerably further in practice! When the hill was rebuilt Ragnar’s record  at Leavenworth was exceeded  among others by two Norwegian Olympic gold medalists, Toralf Engen and Bjorn Wirkola. Ragnar does hold the standing record on the jump at Mt Hood .  He was named to the 1956 Olympic team, held at Cortina, Italy, coached by his uncle Olav. But he was severely injured, out cold for almost two hours, jumping under the difficult conditions that prevailed across all ski sports during those Cortina Olympics.  In his jumps he used a modified Kongsberger technique.  After the revolutionary change in jumping form that became standard over the next few years he surprised himself by being able to readily adapt to that technique, but he did not jump again on the world stage.

In the first years of the club the preparation for a day of jumping or cross country could be demanding. Koll Hagen, a young junior then, remembers packing the jump hill in the morning and then jumping.  Afternoons were spent foot packing, skiing in the course and then training for racing. Kids acquired strength and endurance as well as skills from their distinguished elders.

Young Koll Hagen was among the best.  He became combined champion of the Pacific Northwest twice. He had top ten finishes in both combined and jump at the junior nationals. Undoubtedly unique in the annals of college sports, Koll was recruited in skiing and in swimming, where he was also a champion. Then he walked on to the football team at the University of Washington and became an All-American! In his desire as a new immigrant to fit in, Koll had joined the Ballard Football team. He maintains that most of his first year was spent as a blocking dummy.

Koll’s younger compatriot at the club, Randy Garretson, became junior national champion in BOTH jump and combined.  Randy was twice all-American in jump at Denver University and was on the US jumping team competing in Europe. Rendered a paraplegic because of a jumping injury in a world class event at Leavenworth he went on his long-desired trip to Norway the next year in a wheelchair.  He died a few years ago during the first wave of COVID.

Jumping on substantial hills at the Kongsbergers ended in 1968. Meanwhile the club had begun running successful cross country races officiated by Dave and Shirley Newton. I attribute this quick and successful transition to cross-country competition from jumping partially to the fact that so many Kongsbergers and others were great combined competitors.

There were outstanding skiers skiing at the club during that era, some of them among the most skilled in the country in the classic technique including two Olympians, Biathlon Hall of Famer Jay Bowerman of Eugene and NCAA skimeister Mack Miller of Mc Call,Idaho.  Among them also were our own Einar Svensson and Ozzie Nordheim, both accomplishe combined skiers. We will touch on them in a bit.

Some years ago I was annoyed to find myself falling behind two other old farts somewhat older than this old fart on the climb up Amabalis, Koll Hagen and Vidar Waerness. Koll, OK, we know his history, but Vidar?  Somewhat later, perusing results from the seventies in Dick Arkley’s great collection of memorabilia I discovered that the unheralded Vidar Waerness could beat about anyone in a club race! Apart from the major inconvenience that there were often a few excellent skiers coming out of McCall, Idaho and Oregon, any KSC club race at the cabin might have served as a Northwest Championship. Debbie’s picture from a few weeks ago reminds us that Vidar often accompanied Odd Moen And Kjell Ulland on their epic Sunday adventures. 

Here tonight from that era is Sam Baker. Sam was also a great skier, having been on the Dartmouth ski team. While a Kongsberger he was approached by a legendary coach, his former mentor, Al Merrill of Dartmouth.  He was invited to be team doctor for the US Nordic Team and accompanied it on at least one memorable trip in Europe. Living in Port Angeles for the last fifty years or so, he and his wife Martha have not been members for a while, but for years accompanied Per and Sandy Johnsen on a serious preseason training trip to Silver Star.I regarded those four as the Olympic outpost of the Kongsbergers.  

Per’s wife Sandy and their daughters organized a memorable celebration of his life right here in this room last month. Per Johnsen was something of a skiing celebrity having been in the original running of the American Birkebeiner and almost all of the subsequent Birkebeiners before his death. He was twice named the outstanding Nordic competitor in the Pacific Northwest. At the club he is remembered for the host of training and technique sessions he led for less skilled skiers.

 Kongsbergers had a long relationship with an epic Northwest ski race. the John Craig Memorial. Initiated in the thirties, it was briefly reprised in the fifties and Paul Kaald skied in it then. It was resumed again in 1970.

The John Craig Memorial could be rough on Kongsbergers and others.  The American record holder in the mile, Dyrol Burleson of Oregon, apparently frustrated, once passed me running and carrying his skis. Two KSC club members from New England, Dave and Trina Hosmer, were among the best to have skied at the KSC.  After the memorable 1970 race run in heavy snow they announced that they would never do it again! 

For a few years the race was one way east to west across the Cascades along the snowed-in McKenzie Pass highway, Racers did not know where the finish would be and the weather on top could be brutal. Jostein Berg missed his ride at the finish and spent the night in an unheated DOT shack in his wet racing outfit, almost repeating the tragedy that befell the man for whom it was named.  Marlys Svensson shares a story about her husband. Einar Svensson was meticulous in his race preparation, abreast of any practice that might improve athletic performance. He once left Seattle for the John Craig a day early to prepare.  Marlys and Joe McNulty, arriving the next day, found him groggy and barely able to rise from his bed. He had been hanging upside down from the top of a door when something gave way and he had knocked himself out. He spent race day in the hospital getting brain scans.

In one John Craig Gunnar Unneland surprised all by defeating two-time Olympian Jay Bowerman when Jay was between his Olympic years. Jay and Gunnar had dropped the rest of the field on the crest of the Cascades in snow and foul weather. They traded the lead five or six times on the long downhill. After a switchback and with Gunnar in the the lead, the finish line popped into view “right there”, Jay says. “Gunnar was a worthy victor, and I always looked back on that race as one of the greatest of any of the races I participated in--a perfect head-to-head, one-on-one challenge.” Still skiing big races in 2017 at age 87, Gunnar was the oldest participant in the Canadian Birkebeiner. Gunnar has over the last many summers done essential work in cabin maintenance, especially painting, and it will be hard to replace his attention to all the mundane details.

John “Spider”Burbank, another winner of the John Craig was one of the few members of his illustrious Putney, Vermont high school team not to become a national team or Olympic skier. Recruited at Middlebury, a skiing powerhouse, he chose to attend Evergreen in Olympia. That was because he had heard of Mt. Rainier’s wonderful skiing history and plentiful snow. He did not realize that that could mean a two-hour drive to ski in up to four feet of untracked concrete. Luckily for us and for him, Jay Bowerman referred him to the Kongsbergers.  In 1975 Spider won both the John Craig Memorial and the Kongsbergers’ own Stampede. That particular one was a memorable event in the Norwegian Sesquicentennial celebration of the first Norwegian immigration to this country in 1825.  Ozzie had arranged for the Ballard High School band to play at the cabin and Paul Kaald escorted his Excellency, the Ambassador of Norway to the United States, around the course.

Five legends from that period are no longer with us. Dave and Shirley Newton cut their teeth on Kongsbergers races and eventually became leading race officials in the United States. I might parenthetically note that when they went to the 1980 Olympics, Dave to be Chief of Stadium, over a dozen Kongsbergers accompanied them. Out on the courses every day maintaining them, we carried our rakes on our backs, attached with a string. In that un-PC era, someone labeled us “the Polish Biathlon Team.” 

The Swede Bert Larsson was a great Master’s Skier, with multiple victories at the World Masters Cup. He would achieve them through his powerful double pole. It seemed as if Bert knew almost everybody in the ski world, particularly if they were Swedish. Among them Bengt Herman Nilsson of the FIS and, of course, the King and Queen of Sweden, whom he led on their daily skis on the Olympic courses. Bert, as much as any Kongsberger, noted the progress of junior skiers and commented on them to their coaches. Bert was a Master builder and left us the sauna.

Post war had brought Gunnar Hagen with his family to work on this side of the Atlantic. In 1954 he won the Alberta Provincial Jumping Championship, a victory portrayed in a wonderful photo of Gunnar in flight. If I have the dates correct, based on some information from Ragnar, Gunnar’s remarkable technique anticipated by a year or two a revolutionary change in style. Some years later he finished a cross-country race only seconds behind his son Koll, then concluding his collegiate athletic career by finally skiing for the UW. The press labeled Gunnar “one tough cookie.” In his later years he was the most public face of the Kongsberger Ski Club. Everybody on the ski trails knew Gunnar and his handsome dog “Bumpse.”

Dick Arkley called himself “The Mad Turk”, not without some justification. Needling the balding Ozzie Nordheim he gave him the sobriquet “Ozbaldy”, now immortalized in Kongsberger nomenclature. Scott Tucker reports that Dick’s classic technique was once described as skiing on skis with nails driven through them.  However, he had the power, endurance and will to sometimes beat the best in the club, who never heard the end of it. The results of his extreme exertion were to be found hanging from his face to his long red checkered wool pants. He was long-time club secretary and compended a mass of race results and newspaper articles, a few examples of which are on display here. You may note the casual, rather sloppy, covers. They are a reflection of his personality, indifferent to exterior appearance but an interior of value and integrity.

Kongsberger women have always enjoyed skiing and have always entered local tour races such our own Stampede used to be. 

In 1970 serious, high level women’s ski racing at the Konsgsbergers began with a bang. Dave and Trina Hosmer arrived from New England. Dave could win a club race, and it seems that Trina eventually beat every member but Einar Svensson in one or the other of the short club races.  Training at the KSC helped Trina prepare for her pathfinding role as a member of the first United States Women’s Nordic Ski Team to the FIS Championships.

Kongsbergers had already been running great ski races that included girls, again under the direction of those great supporters of junior skiing, Dave and Shirley Newton. Those races had furthered the skill of the members of a remarkable group, the Wenatchee Racing Team. Founded by a great Middlebury skier, Herb Thomas and later taken over by a parent Jack Owen, it was for a while perhaps the best junior team in the country short of John Caldwell’s legendary Putney School teams. Five young women from the Wenatchee team were named to the US Ski Team! That team and PNSA forced the integration of junior women into the junior nationals by bringing along young Alison Owen to the exclusively boy’s races. Her successful races resulted in the inclusion of junior girls’ races the next year. Alison went on to join Trina Hosmer as a member of the first US women’s FIS team and to be an international star. She won the first World Cup race for women at Telemark, Wisconsin and was a 1980 Olympian.

During the seventies Pat Engberg showed up. She was an exceptionally strong woman of sunny disposition who had been on KSC member Doris Brown Heritage’s Falcon Track Club but had only a little alpine skiing in her background. Skiing initially on Jim Lindsey’s skis, the rat trap bindings of which she pressed over her running shoes, she was within a year training on the Dachstein Glacier in Austria with the US Ski Team. She did break two pairs of Jim’s skis along her learning curve. Her primary instructor at the club was Kris Guttormsen, former slalom champion of Norway. Ironically, she never overcame her trepidation on challenging downhills! Einar Svensson also coached her at several Yellowstone pre-season training camps. Among Pat’s accomplishments was a second to Norwegian star Vigdis Roenning at the American Birkebeiner and a World Cup 19th at Lahti, no less. Pretty good for a woman who had been skiing but for a few years!  

In its role in the development of these several young women as great skiers we can conclude that the KSC played no small role in the advancement of women’s skiing in the United States.

There is a number of couples who have been remarkable in their competitive efforts and in their achievements in service to the club, dating back fifty or sixty years.

Jim and June Lindsey

June Lindsey created our Viking logo, the first manifestation of it being the cedar carving hanging in the club living room. June was the first Kongsberger woman to participate in the great Scandinavian tour races, despite her husband. In her first Holmenkollmarsj, husband Jim and his buddy Ozzie finished the race, watched ski jumping, got cold, then went home without her. Finishing her race, she herself got home by train, bus and a long walk. She arrived to find them drinking aquavit!  To this day June will be found providing essential races services, often that of sorting, counting and washing the race bibs.

Jim was informal legal counsel to the club for years.  He and Ozzie were frequently, as noted, traveling to the great Scandinavian races. June may not regret the times they went without her. Jim was the force behind one of the most consequential actions the club has taken, that of rerouting and rebuilding the trails in the early eighties. He did the greater share of planning, organization and direction and met with the USFS ranger at Cle Elum securing permission.  That course was for years a popular junior national qualifier course, and now is one of the most favored in the state by the general public. It has continuously been a great venue for KSC races. Jim was to be found only last Wednesday ski walking the entire course at 90.

Paul and Pat Kaald

Paul raced in the first reincarnation from the thirties of the John Craig race in 1951.  He is the only Kongsberger that I know of to have skied the renowned Koenig Ludwig Lauf in Germany, I believe at that time 90 kilometers. He may have participated in more World Masters Cups than any Kongsberger and has been the oldest entrant there. Present whenever hard work was to be done at the cabin or on the courses, he authored and directed the construction of the PK Loop, the semi-circular approach to the finish of our races.

Pat has worked in the kitchen or elsewhere in our races for fifty plus years. Providing support for Paul in his masters skiing endeavors for years, she herself jumped into the fray several years ago. The oldest female participant in Minneapolis, she was named “ Matriarch of the Games.”  She was a few years ago second to last in her running of the Engadine in Switzerland. She had spent some time helping in a cardiac emergency on the course!

Odd and Helga Moen

Recently Martha Cramer, daughter of Odd and Helga Moen, sent me some pictures of some of her father’s handiwork.  They are the brackets he made which support critical beams in the Kongsberger’s cabin. 

What a metaphor! For years Odd and his friend Kjell Ulland, another nephew of Olav’s, were central to the Club’s endeavors, supporting it as do those brackets the beams, in varied capacities. Among the best racers in their younger years, they were for most of their active lives essential members of the club whether putting in the wood supply or being ever present at critical points of a ski race. Kjell served as Chief of Jump at the 1973 Junior Nationals.  Odd and Kjell typically rested on the seventh day…briefly. Their Sunday breakfasts at the cabin featured Norwegian Sea fare and farming products. They would then set out on a demanding tour, in the Norwegian tradition, of the local mountains, about which they were exceedingly knowledgeable. A great part of the successes of the early years of the Kongsbergers are due to those two. Helga’s years of service match her husband’s. She has been an unassuming model of initiative, competency, and integrity. The demands of raising kids while learning a new profession, that of nursing, did not stop her active involvement in the club.

Ozzie and Joan Nordheim

Ozzie Nordheim, a slalom champion in Norway, was recruited by Willy Shaeffler of Denver University from Wenatchee Junior College. He was a four-way skier there and was named an All American in cross-country. An inveterate traveler to the great long distance races in Europe, often with Jim Lindsey, he is the Holder of a Silver Cup, an award for sustained strong results over many years at the Norwegian Birkebeiner.  Long a club officer Ozzie was influential in many decisions made by the board of directors and ranks as one of the club’s great supporters.  In later years Ozzie would show up with Gunnar, first to arrive at the Cabin on Wednesdays.  Later arrivals were invariably greeted with a grin and his universal summation of ski conditions, no matter what was happening out there. “Faaaaaantastic!”  OK… there was the rare time or two when he would look at you glumly and mutter“The skiing….It's the shits!” Ozzie usually warmed up by turning on the tape deck loaded with Norwegian dance tunes and proceeded to solo dance. The christening of Ozzie’s second crab boat in Ballard was a memorable intersection of the fishing and skiing communities. His mom in the full traditional regalia of a matron from Telemark did the honors.

Joan has been steadfast in her support of the KSC since joining the club, and Ozzie, some fifty years ago. Her reliability, steady hand and good humor have served her well in a number of capacities with the club, including that of treasurer. She has participated in some of the great races and some of the most demanding adventures in the club, including that of the Tour Across Finland.  She did admit that it was happiest finish of a skiing event in her life!

Einar, Marlys and John Svensson

Einar Svensson, husband of Marlys and father of John, was one of the more accomplished masters skiers in the world. He had skied combined before coming to the States.  He was a medalist or winner in his age group eleven times at World Masters Cup. Einar’s crowning achievement in skiing (he had others in a remarkable engineering career) was winning the Holmenkollmarsj for men fifty and over, for which he was honored by the King of Norway. Einar traveled widely and participated in major races far off the beaten track, including in Spain and Australia. At the Kongsbergers he ran several major ski camps that were of enormous value to the high school kids and their coaches. A great technician in classic skiing, he went on to write a lavishly illustrated book of instruction in skating. Marlys was essential support in her husband’s racing career.  She was a steadying hand for both her husband and for the Kongsbergers.  Unflappable, she could meet and deal calmly with the unexpected. Marlys also thoughtfully launched the club’s member book, originally in hard copy format. John Svensson, already an elegant classic skier at age 12, is the most adept in technique of any native born skier ever to ski at the Kongsbergers Ski Club. He was later a member of the US Ski Team. Though not active in the KSC as an adult, he has been an influential executive in in-line skating and in Nordic Skiing. He was a world speed record holder on in-line skates, at 72 mph, and co-authored a book on in-line skating. He is now K2’s director of new product development.

Two more Kongsbergers with a fifty year history, although like the Svenssons, not continuously, are Gil and Berit Lund. Gil’s oversight, maintenance and operation of the snowmobiles was critical for the club.  Berit was the typical Kongsberger woman in stepping up to important jobs in race preparation. She was also among the first group of Kongsberger women who enjoyed sustained racing among themselves and in the broader public. Both of them have participated in major races in the Northwest and Scandinavia.

Kaare and Aase Gjolmesli

Kaare and Aase arrived at the club recently married in Norway, having been high school sweethearts. Kaare was an active jumper at the club and at Leavenworth. He has left his mark on this club in a most literal sense as has no other. A builder, he found the time to oversee the construction, largely by club amateurs, of most of the club infrastructure. His organization and leadership in the rebuild of the cabin in 1990 was the largest single contribution to the successes of the club in its history.  Legendary in their efforts to successfully feed the multitudes, Kaare and Aase have been essential to the success of great races and productive work parties.  The two have also been key in important maintenance of the cabin.  All the while they were active in the outdoors and members of another club, Seattle Canoe and Kayak.  Kaare was on the paddling leg of a winning team at the Ski to Sea!  Thank you, Kaare and Aase.

I wish to conclude by briefly talking about junior skiers, who have been and will be the future of the club.  Hundreds of juniors have been exposed to Nordic skiing at the club.  For most it has become a lifelong sport and Suzanne and I see former juniors continuing to enjoy skiing on our courses almost every week. For a few it has opened up possibilities to excel in competition. And for some it has been a life changing experience. 

We have had a couple of members with a fifty year affiliation with the club who began as juniors, then returned to the club to contribute mightily to the club’s success.  Jim Slyfield began as an Overlake skier with Nat Brown.  He became an avid skier who to this day enjoys preparing for and participating in great races. His dedication to trail work and his enthusiasm for organization of work parties has gone a long ways toward keeping our trails among the best in the state. His wife Elizabeth Bailey is also active having served as Cabin Chief. 

Coert Voorhees excelled at racing as a junior and was eventually a member of the US Ski Team.  Returning to the club much later in life, Coert and his wife Courtney established the Momentum Ski Team, one of the most exciting things happening at the club today.

I consider Phil Peck to be something of the iconic Kongsberger junior. Phil arrived at the Kongsbergers alone as a young teenager in 1970.  He was a budding alpine skier who as an eighth grader had set a high school record in the 800. Dean Palmer, who was a mover and shaker in Northwest alpine affairs, told him” Philsy, you’re not going to ski alpine next year. I will put you in touch with the Kongsberger Ski Club” That counsel changed his life. “I never would have done anything that I did in skiing without the countless friends, mentors and coaches that I had at the Kongsberger Ski Club.”

Phil says that the instruction he received from Einar Svensson and Ozzie Nordheim was consequential. He was later recruited at Dartmouth in football but skied there instead. Knowing his background, Ozzie once told him “Phil, you ski like a football player. Ski with finesse, not power! (Today the admonition might be to ski with both!) With the Newtons taking him to races, he eventually became a top ten junior national skier, where Jay Bowerman was his coach. Stepping in to coach him for a year at Dartmouth was our own Joe McNulty, who had been recently one of Middlebury’s great skiers, 50 km champion of the US and a member of the US Ski Team. Phil was team captain at Dartmouth and a member of their NCAA championship team. He became in the Kongsberger tradition a coach at the Olympics, for the United States! The Holderness School offered him a position as ski coach and history teacher and he was eventually the head of school for twenty some years. Talk about the Kongsbergers as life changing!

With the arrival of high school kids and their coaches, great junior skiers continued to emerge from the club. Scott Tucker and Marsha Hoem were invited to represent the Pacific Northwest on an elite junior team of forerunners at the 1980 Olympics at Lake Placid, the opportunity of a lifetime. Scott became a leading skier at Middlebury and eventually returned to the Kongsbergers where he and his then wife Kathryn raised their children to be avid skiers. Along the way Scott was several times winner of the Gunnar Hagen. Marsha had annoyed her coaches at the University of Colorado by missing the NCAA quarter finals for her Olympic forerunning honor. They in effect kicked her off the team. She could enter the championships, but would have to wax her own skis, would get no splits and face an early start. There was fresh snow on the course, but Marsha passed all the forerunners. Skiing most of the race in that fresh snow, she finished ninth, several tenths of a second out of an All-American designation!

I can assure you old timers who have not been up to see recent events at the cabin that the club still has very capably led races that adults and juniors from around the Northwest enjoy.  The new membership has risen successfully to some great challenges, among them Covid. And the junior scene is absolutely thriving. On Saturday the place hums with the activity of the Momentum ski program.  Kongsberger parents who are skilled skiers provide great instruction to scores of kids. And boy, is that paying off. Fun for everybody and some of the racers of Momentum are excelling at ski racing. The King’s court sprint races sponsored by the Ellensburg Ski Team and run by former KSC junior Jeff Hashimoto and his wife Carey Gazis, are the most exciting ski races ever run at the cabin. It seems like hundreds of kids, with all sizes zipping about before and during the race, and wave after wave of kids and kiddies starting and completing their races on novel short courses that have been known to go through the snowmobile shed attached to the waxing cabin!

One former junior at the Club is Justin Wadsworth. He learned his lessons well and became in the Kongsberger tradition…an Olympic ski coach. He was a junior national champion and a national team member as was founder Gus Raaum. Continuing an amazing recapitulation of Kongsberger history, Justin has also been Coach of Team Canada and is now coach of Biathlon Canada, just as were Olav and Gunnar coaches of Italy, the United States and Yugoslavia.

In sum, the Kongsberger Ski Club is a thriving institution with a dynamic new membership and great leadership from varied personalities. The old timers here and their compatriots now in Valhalla laid the foundation for the current successes of the distinguished Kongsberger Ski Club. I would like all here to rise and to applaud the Kongsbergers’ greatest generation. Thank you.

Rob Corkran                                                                                                                                                       

Coach, Bush School Ski Team, 1974-2006                                                                                       

 Member Kongsberger Ski Club 1974-2024