Alumni Address Building Success in "Life After SVSEF" Forum
Many young people grow up in the Wood River Valley living and breathing skiing and snowboarding. The Sun Valley Ski Education Foundation offers a platform for these kids to achieve their skiing and snowboarding goals, and to become phenomenal snowsport athletes.
At the end of their high school skiing career, however, many of these athletes are left wondering where they can go with the sport. While a very small percentage of skiers manage to break into elite levels of competition, there are any number of ways athletes can incorporate skiing into their lives and careers.
To that end, SVSEF Academic Director Matt Leidecker has arranged the 3rd annual Life After SVSEF. Leidecker takes advantage of the holiday season when many SVSEF alumni return home to organize an informal panel discussion between current and former athletes.
This year’s alumni panel will include a wide array of former SVSEF skiers and boarders, including alpine athletes Tanner Farrow and Harlan Collins. Farrow is currently competing on with the U.S. Men’s Alpine Ski team and Collins is finishing up a collegiate career on the USCSA college circuit with Rocky Mountain College.
Cross Country alum Mikey Sinnott, who competed for many years at the collegiate (captain of the Dartmouth College Division I Nordic Ski Team) and World Cup level, offers a great perspective on what it takes to continue competitive cross country racing after high school.
Current SVSEF athletes will have a great opportunity to learn from alums McKenna Peterson and Lexi Dupont. Both women competed on the Freeskiing World Tour and have continued to pursue a career in the industry. Dupont is a sponsored Eddie Bauer adventure athlete, and McKenna was recently part of an all-female team that produced a documentary called, “Shifting Ice, Changing Tides” about skiing in Greenland. Both women have made appearances in Warren Miller films.
Rounding out the panel are Wyatt Caldwell and Griffin Post. Wyatt grew up snowboarding for SVSEF and has competed at many different levels as the sport evolved. He and his brother Yancy are part of Stellar Media an “action adventure content solution” media company. After leaving Sun Valley, Post established his position in the ski world with an impressive series of podium results on the Freeride World Tour between 2006 and 2009. He currently is a sponsored athlete, growing his brand through filming and writing.
The Life after SVSEF event provides an excellent opportunity for these alums to share their wealth of knowledge and experience in the ski industry with current athletes, their parents and general public. The format of the event is an informal Q&A where SVSEF members can seek insight and guidance from their older counterparts about how to incorporate skiing and boarding into their lives beyond high school.
The event will take place on Sunday, December 27th from 11:30 to 1:00 p.m. in the SVSEF Engl Training Center at Warm, Springs. The forum is free and open to the public.
Adventurer and skier McKenna Peterson
Photo courtesy of Shifting Ice
-Story by Matt Leidecker