The 2022 Hall of Fame Inductees
Ralph DesLauriers
Ralph is the founder of Bolton Valley which debuted on Christmas Eve of 1966. Bolton Valley initially featured three double chairlifts serving 9 trails and 3 slopes spanning 963 vertical feet. Adding to the resort's atmosphere there was night skiing and a hotel that could sleep 144 people.
For its second season, improvements included new glades, a heated pool, and a skating rink. The mountain was known as a family-friendly area and drew skiers from nearby Burlington and beyond.
Two famous extreme skiers, Rob and Eric DesLauriers, Ralph’s sons, grew up skiing at Bolton and went on to star in dozens of ski movies. Ralph continued to expand and improve the resort he founded and loved until 1997 when the resort changed ownership. In 2017 Ralph re-purchased Bolton Valley with his children, Lindsay, Evan, and Adam who now follow in his footsteps and run the resort.
Ralph may very well be the last ski area founder alive today who still owns and operates the resort they built, demonstrating an incredible life-long commitment to the Vermont ski industry.
In addition to developing and operating Bolton Valley, Ralph served as a Board Member of the Vermont Ski Areas Association from 1967-1995, including as Chairman of the Board for twelve years. He served as the Representative for Vermont on the National Ski Areas Association Board of Directors between 1980 and 1986, including being Chairman of the International Marketing Committee for four years. For his pioneering ski industry work, he was the Vermont representative to the White House Conference of Small Business in 1978, which was hosted by President Jimmy Carter.
Jim Holland
Jim was raised in Norwich, VT, across the river from the Dartmouth ski jump in Hanover, NH. Jim and his older brothers grew up ski jumping; all went on to be Olympians. Jim and his oldest brother, Mike, were Olympic jumpers and Joe a Nordic Combined athlete.
In 1987, during a training jump at Lake Placid, NY, Jim suffered a massive fall when his skis hit an ice patch while approaching take-off, something modern-day hill formats and preparation protect against. Breaking four vertebrae and undergoing back surgery at the age of 19, some might have believed his ski jumping days were over. However, never one to back away from a challenge, Jim went on to win six National Ski Jumping Championships and compete in two Winter Olympics.
Before the Olympic Winter Games in Albertville, France (’92) Holland drastically changed his technique. Instead of jumping the traditional way with skis straight and body extended forward, he turned the tips of his skis out like a “V” and sailed farther than he ever had before. His 12th place finish there was among the top performances by a U.S. jumper. He jumped at the Winter Games at Lillehammer, Norway in ’94.
In 1995, Jim retired from ski jumping and after graduating from the University of Vermont he headed west to Park City, UT with his childhood friend, John Bresee, also from Norwich, VT. Inspired by their passion for ski mountaineering, the two created Backcountry.com just as Internet shopping was catching on. An immense success, Holland and Bresee sold a majority interest in Backcountry.com in 2007. Jim remains involved as a minority shareholder and holds a seat on the board of directors.
In 2007, the U.S. Ski Team abandoned ski jumping and Jim stepped in as the sport was unraveling. With no National Team, Jim helped start and fund USA Nordic Sports, a nonprofit in Park City that runs men’s and women’s national jumping and Nordic combined programs, keeping the sport alive.
Today Jim continues to support the sport of ski jumping, including charitable support to Ford Sayre Memorial Ski Council’s jumping program.
No stranger to confronting challenges head-on, Jim now faces his toughest yet. With a Parkinson’s diagnosis, Jim is determined to fight back and is putting resources toward research to find a cure. Someday, he’ll tell us all he had Parkinson’s.
Jim continues to mountain bike and downhill ski.
A 7th generation Vermonter, Battleboro may be considered Jim’s home hill.
Last February we had the honor of inducting Jim as the first member of our Class of 2022 at the 100th anniversary of Brattleboro’s Harris Hill ski jump.
Rip McManus
At an early age Rip was enrolled in Rutland, Vermont’s Pico Peak Junior Program, a multi-year comprehensive ski school. Thanks to the encouragement of Stevia and Keen Chaffee, Rip excelled at ski racing with the Pico Peak Ski Club. He joined the Rutland High School Ski Team and went on to set the record for the Pico Downhill Derby.
Rip deferred his admission to Denver University to join the European Ski Racing Circuit. Rip found his path by racing against the world’s best, the Austrian Alpine Ski Team.
During the off-season, Rip made Stowe, Vermont his training base. He joined Stowe’s ski lift tower installation crew and volunteered for the high-risk work. Mount Mansfield Ski Corporation’s Sepp Ruschp took an interest in Rip and so did Mt. Mansfield Ski Club. Rip and his friend Billy Kidd were featured together on the cover of the Club’s Magazine in November 1963.
Stowe’s Graphic Arts innovator, Joe Daley tasked Rip with developing the early chart-based version of the International Ski Federation (FIS) and World Cup point system that rapidly ranked ski racers at the end of each race.
Rip raced for the Denver University Ski Team and then enlisted in the Army to race worldwide within the International Military Sports Council for the United States Army Alpine Ski Team. After winning the North American National Championships, he was named to the 1964 U. S. Alpine Ski Team and raced with the team during the 1963-1964 season. At the 1964 Innsbruck, Austria Winter Olympics, he and his teammates cheered on Vermont’s Billy Kidd and Jimmie Heuga as they made Winter Olympic alpine ski racing history as the first American Men to win Olympic medals.
Following the Olympics, Rip finished his enlistment in the Army, married and went to work for a series of high-performance ski equipment companies: Head Skis, Lange Boots, Olin Ski Testing, and his own ski racer mail order business.
Rip worked in the sound booth with Jim McKay at the 1968 Grenoble, France Winter Olympics and worked with Robert Redford in 1969 as a cast member and ski racer double in the American sports film drama, "Downhill Racer". With a twinkle in his eye and a mischievous grin, Rip went through life promoting the growth of the American Ski Industry.
Betsy Pratt (1928-2023)
Betsy grew up in Greenwich, Connecticut. After attending Vassar College, she moved to New York City and worked for the Ford Foundation. Her sister, Sally, talked her into coming to Mad River Glen for a ski weekend in 1954. There she met Trux Pratt, who was a member of the Montclair Ski Club. They soon married, buying a ski house in North Fayston on their honeymoon.
Mad River Glen was founded in 1947 by Roland Palmedo, who had previously developed Stowe. He and trail designer and long-time General Manager Ken Quackenbush developed Mad River to be less commercial than Stowe: a skier’s mountain, with trails designed to follow the natural contours of the mountain.
In 1972, Roland sold Mad River to a group of investment bankers and skiers led by Trux Pratt and Brad Swett. Unfortunately, when Trux passed away in 1975, the ski industry was going through tumultuous times. Betsy took the reins at Mad River, carefully guiding the mountain to preserve its unique character. Rather than bulldoze the terrain and coat the mountain with artificial snow, as most Eastern ski areas were doing by the 1980’s, Betsy fought to preserve and protect the mountain in its original state. She and marketing expert and MRG skier, Gerry Muro, developed the “Mad River Glen, Ski it if You Can” marketing campaign. The red and white bumper stickers turned Mad River Glen into one of the most recognizable brands in the ski industry. The plain meaning of the slogan was, “ski it when there’s snow,” but many also read it as a competition (ski it if you’re good enough), or a bucket list item (ski it if you get the chance). She also encouraged telemark skiing, which is still taught on the mountain to this day.
Mad River Glen flourished. By this time, Betsy had also purchased the Mad River Barn, just down the hill from the ski area. Her next challenge was transferring ownership in Mad River to a new generation who would also appreciate and expand on the mountain’s conservationist ethos. She did this by selling skiers on the idea of the first and only cooperatively owned ski area in the country. She talked about it everywhere: in the lift line, on the chair lift, in the Basebox lodge, and even at the grocery store. The transfer of the mountain to the Mad River Co-op finally took place in 1995.
Betsy continued running the Mad River Barn and being Mad River Glen’s biggest cheerleader until she retired in 2012, when she moved to North Carolina. Today, she still enjoys watching hikers, snowshoers, and skiers on Mad River Glen’s live webcams.