Dear Friends and SNOW Sports Followers,
With blizzard warnings, closed roads, 100 mph wind gusts and 10 feet of new snow, we hope you are enjoying SPRING in the Sierra! Never a dull moment in snow country – and no dull moments for SNOW Sports Museum, as you can see by the following updates.
Spring 2024 Highlights
After 15 years of extensive community outreach, surveys, input gathering, evaluation of alternative sites, preliminary museum design and a thorough examination of environmental impacts, the Placer County Board of Supervisors voted unanimously to endorse a Resolution certifying the Final Environmental Impact Report (EIR) for the SNOW Museum in Olympic Valley Park. Read the press release here.
International Ski History Association, “Honoring the best works of history published or produced during this past year” awards an honorable mention for promotional video on history of Sierra skiing. Watch the video here.
Preserving and curating precious artifacts for the future museum is an important and ongoing task as well as part of our overall mission. Here are some highlights:
October 2022 – Teri Hedgpeth, a certified archivist with 20 years of experience, led a weekend workshop at Auburn Ski Club’s Snowsport Museum. With eight years of experience as Director of Archives and Collections Curator at the U.S. Olympic and ParaOlympic Museum in Colorado, Teri guided volunteers through the process of handling, tagging and photographing objects and then entering information in a data processing system.
September 2023 – Teri returned to train Conor Vilnes as Director along with 3 volunteer interns from California State University, Sacramento in the use of Past Perfect Museum software and how to physically inspect everything from tiny pins, to 19th century 14- foot skis, to stacks of magazines, newspapers and material from the 1960 Olympics. Conor led his three interns in a 3-month archiving project, processing over 1,000 historical items, photos and documents during more than 1,000 hours of work. These items tell incredible stories and will inform the exhibits and design of the future SNOW Museum!
Now open daily from 10am – 5pm. Locals and visitors continue to be delighted by the artifacts and memorabilia from the 1960 Olympics, photos, narratives of our regional athletes, and exhibits displaying the remarkable history snow sports in the Sierra Nevada. With a large conference table and nearby restaurants, Lake Tahoe Ski Club and other non-profits have found this location a good place for meetings or social gatherings. For information on scheduling an event, send us an email at info@TheSnowMuseum.org
We are at an exciting but critical stage in the long process of building this much-desired museum and cultural facility in our Tahoe-Truckee region. Our band of talented board members and advisors has contributed endless time and effort to committees and projects to get us here.
However, we have come to the point where we need to hire a Project Director to manage current projects including Collections Archiving and Curation, and Fundraising, while positioning us to be “ready to go” in early 2024 when we will be hiring a lead Capital Campaign Consultant, Exhibit Designers and working with Architects to create the final working drawings.
We’ve learned that State and Federal grants are largely unavailable until we have an operating museum, so we are relying on community donations to help us advance our cause to build the finest, most modern and engaging cultural amenity in Tahoe-Truckee.
I ask you to please give as generously as you can today, for together we will build a place where we can explore our pasts and imagine our futures.
Thanks for your support,
Eddy Ancinas, President
SNOW Sports Museum Board
Thank you from the SNOW Sports Museum Team!
The SNOW Sports Museum (dba SVSMF) is a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organization. The foundation mission and objectives are to build a world class museum to offer cultural, historical and educational opportunities for people of all ages and abilities, especially youth. All purchases and donations support these efforts. Rights Reserved, SVSMF.
