Vail – Former President Gerald Ford – who put this ski town on the map when he was in office and was dubbed the community’s “First Citizen” in retirement – was remembered Saturday night with a dramatic torchlight parade of skiers.
About 3,000 people, including residents who knew Ford and tourists who happened to be in town, braved subfreezing temperatures on a clear night to honor the president who made Vail his “winter White House.” He died Tuesday.
“He did an awful lot for this community, and we all will miss him,” said Vail Mayor Rod Slifer. “We hope that you will remember the Ford family in your prayers and celebrate his life.”
In tribute to Ford’s passion for skiing, some 600 Vail Resorts ski and snowboard instructors, bearing red- flamed flares in each hand, snaked down the ski hill in a stirring visual tribute that lasted 40 minutes.
“President Ford’s legacy is about hope and light,” said the Rev. Brooks Keith, pastor of the Episcopal Church of the Transfiguration, as the skiers’ flares were used to light candles held by mourners in the dark.
Keith – one of a half-dozen religious leaders who spoke – had just returned from consoling the Ford family at a private prayer service in Palm Desert, Calif.
“I told them how much the Vail Valley loves them and how much they’re in our prayers,” he said. “Believe me, they need our prayers. They’re grieving deeply, as we all are.”
An avid skier, Ford first came to Vail as a member of Congress in 1968, when the resort was in its infancy, and two years later he borrowed $50,000 from his children’s life-insurance policy to buy a three-bedroom condominium at the Lodge at Vail.
Returning annually, he drew an international spotlight to the resort after becoming vice president and then president.
“He really put this place on the map,” said Konrad Oberlohr, an Austrian immigrant who worked as an interior finisher on Ford’s house in Beaver Creek.
Like many people who enjoyed chance encounters with Ford, Oberlohr recalled the president as an avuncular gentleman who didn’t put on airs.
“He’s just one of the locals,” he said. “He didn’t seem like he was the president. He was like one of us.”
After his defeat to Jimmy Carter in the 1976 election, Ford and his wife, Betty, sought solace among their close friends in Vail and became ensconced in the community, often seen at the grocery store or in the town’s upscale restaurants.
Ford lent his name and prestige to charitable causes throughout the valley, bringing in celebrities for the American Ski Classic and the Jerry Ford golf tournament, as well as international leaders for his private world forum.
For years, Ford ceremoniously lit the town’s Christmas tree, and in appreciation, the town named its outdoor amphitheater after him and its acclaimed alpine gardens after his wife.
“More than any other president, he became an organic and integral part of the community,” said Pete Dawkins, a part-time Vail resident.
Dawkins, a retired Army general, fulfilled a White House fellowship under Ford, and, while serving at the Pentagon, lived just down the street from his fellow Michigan native.
“His daughter, Susan, used to babysit for our kids,” said Dawkins, a one-time Republican candidate for U.S. Senate in New Jersey.
Dawkins, a Heisman Trophy winner at West Point, and Ford – an all-America center at the University of Michigan – also shared a common link as college-football standouts.
“Because I was a ballplayer, he sort of adopted me,” Dawkins said. “I have a very great fondness for him.”
Staff writer Steve Lipsher can be reached at 970-513-9495 or slipsher@denverpost.com.
