James Temple, who literally blazed the trails for Steamboat ski area, died Monday at a care center in Steamboat Springs. He was 82.
Temple is the second Steamboat ski pioneer to die in recent days. John Fetcher, who became head of the ski corporation that Temple founded, died Friday at 97.
A celebration of life for Temple is planned Sunday at 2 p.m. at the Storm Mountain Ranch, 5 miles south of Steamboat.
Temple, who moved as an infant to Colorado, had the “vision” to start a ski slope at Steamboat, said his sons, Jeff Temple and Jamie Temple, in a statement.
As a kid living on a ranch, he would climb up a nearby hill and ski down on wooden skis, his sons said.
When he began the Steamboat development, he decided where the runs should be, took people to Storm Mountain to show them what he planned and hired the late Jess Brenton to drive a Caterpillar tractor to clear the land. He also invested much of his own money and worked hard at getting investors, Jeff Temple said in an interview.
“It was hard. He invested some of his money by selling his share of the ranch,” Jeff Temple said.
Temple “was totally obsessed” with opening a ski area at Steamboat and began the project in 1958, his sons said. He founded the Storm Mountain Ski Corp. and was president and chairman of the board, his sons said.
The first trails were on what is now Christie Peak, his sons said.
Temple opened the ski area in the winter of 1960-61. The first ski tickets cost $2. Today they are $91, Jeff Temple said. The elder Temple opened several runs and had the rest of the mountain laid out.
Before the higher runs were completed, Temple left the corporation and went into real estate, developing several residential areas in the Steamboat Springs area.
For many years he lived in Boulder and moved back to Steamboat Springs about one year ago because of poor health, Jeff Temple said.
From his room at the care center, he could see the slopes.
James Wood Temple was born in Dalton, Ga., on Jan. 10, 1927, and moved with his family to Colorado when he was an infant. The family owned a ranch on the Colorado-Wyoming border.
He served in the Navy and attended the University of Colorado. He was a ski instructor at Jack Reddish Ski School in Brighton, Utah, and later trained as an avalanche forecaster in Utah.
He married Audrey Light on July 1, 1951.
In addition to his wife and sons, he is survived by his daughter Lisa Temple of Boulder, two grandchildren and his sister, Pat Sandefur of Colorado Springs. He was preceded in death by his daughter Kristin DeGaetano.
Virginia Culver: 303-954-1223 or vculver@denverpost.com
Other Deaths
Molly Bee, the country singer who shot to fame at age 13 with the 1952 novelty hit “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus,” died Saturday of complications following a stroke. She was 69.
Bee was just 10 when she sang on country star Rex Allen’s radio show. Three years later, the blond girl with the sweet-honey voice had a hit song and a regular role on Los Angeles television and later “Hometown Jamboree,” a popular Los Angeles country-Western TV show. She made her movie debut in 1954 in “Corral Cuties,” opposite country star Tennessee Ernie Ford, with whom she had recorded “Don’t Go Courtin’ in a Hot Rod Ford” the year before.
“She just had this kind of down-home quality about her. There was nothing phony about her; it was all real, and everyone loved her,” actress Beverly Washburn said. The two had appeared as sisters in the 1958 teen musical comedy “Summer Love.” Bee’s career began to fade by the late 1960s, however, and in later years she was candid in saying a period of drug abuse was one of the reasons.
Molly Gene Beachboard was born Aug. 18, 1939, in Oklahoma City and raised in Tennessee and Arizona before moving to Los Angeles with her family at age 11.
She is survived by daughters Lia Genn and Bobbi Carey, son Michael Allen, brother Robert Beachboard and four grandchildren. The Associated Press
