Class of 2010

2010 Hall of Fame Program PDF

     Kirsten Clark would make it on her record in national championships alone, five Downhill titles, one Super G, and one Combined. In addition in 13 years on the US Team the Raymond native stood on World cup podiums 8 times, including one DH victory, in 28 top ten finishes. In 2003 she won a Silver Medal in the World Alpine Championships and skied in three Olympics. It’s the best Alpine record of any Maine skier.

     Fryeburg’s Marcus Nash skied on the US Cross Country team in two Olympics in nearly a decade on the team. His best international result was a Gold Medal along with teammate Justin Wadsworth in the Goodwill Games at Lake Placid in 2000. Nash was a nine time US Champion at various distances.

     Most Maine skiers have heard of Mort Lund, whose ski writing career started in 1954 with Sports Illustrated, but how many know he grew up in Augusta and graduated from Bowdoin College?   He went on to write for Ski Magazine on every aspect of the sport, covering Olympics, short ski teaching, GLM and working with PSIA. His books include, “The Skier’s World”, “The Skier’s Bible”, “The Ski Book” and more. For more than three decades he was SKI’s leading writer. He is one of the most prolific ski journalists in the World and continues as editor of “Skiing Heritage” the first US nationwide history journal published under the auspices of the International Skiing History Association.

     Bernard “Ben” Paradis has been described as the “Glue” that held the ski community together in the St. John Valley. As a coach for Fort Kent High School for 26 years his teams won 5 state titles in classes A & C. He developed numerous state champion skiers and won over 20 Aroostook championships, all while serving on the board of Lonesome Pine Ski Trails.

     John Atwood’s career in skiing spanned a lifetime, skiing on the University of New Hampshire ski team, 1941-1943 and as a Second Lieutenant with the 10^th Mt. Division Italy 1943-1945. Following the war he skied on the US Army ski team in Europe before returning to UNH 1947-1949. In 1962 he founded the Fryeburg Junior Ski Program, developing a feeder program for Fryeburg Academy, one of the state’s top ski teams. He coached over the Fryeburg girls team next 20 years winning the state Class A title in 1976. He also found time to serve on the Ski Patrol at Pleasant Mountain through the sixties.

     If Freestyle Skiing had been part of the Olympics a couple of decades before it was recognized, Maine might have had a Gold Medalist a lot earlier. Joan McWilliams, (Now Dolan) skied out of Sugarloaf and dominated the sport winning five National Championships in seven years on the US Team. She started in the Sugarloaf Masters Program in the early seventies and went on to win her first National Title in 1976 as a freshman in high school. In 1979 Joan represented the US in the first ever FIS sanctioned freestyle competition and won the combined title. Had it not been for a horrific crash in the 1983 National Freestyle championships she might have gone on to win many more titles. Instead she turned to coaching and has produced a bunch of our countries top freestyle competitors at CVA.

     While at Edward Little, Bob Harkins worked weekend as a patrolman at Sunday River and continued volunteering weekends while at the University of Maine. After graduation he turned to coaching in the alpine racing program at Sunday River beginning a teaching and coaching career that led to serving as athletic director and head ski coach at Gould Academy before becoming director of the racing program at Alpental Ski Area in Washington State. Next came a stint with the US ski team heading up the Development Program and working as alpine operations manager during the Calgary Olympics. From the team he returned to Sunday River where he was the key figure in creating the Perfect Turn Program an innovative way to develop skiers, which is still used at Sunday River and Sugarloaf and has been franchised to other ski resorts.