Fifty years to the day after their state championship victory, the 1971 Durango High School ski team will gather at the scene of their remarkable feat for a reunion.
It’s not just a reunion. It’s a race.
The 1971 Durango High School ski team will meet Saturday at Purgatory Resort and Sunday at the Durango Nordic Center for a special gathering to commemorate their big win back on Feb. 27, 1971 on the very same Purgatory slopes.
“Ron Yeager and I, we are going to be the first two to go down the slalom course,” said 1971 MVP Daryl Tomberlin, now 68. “We are going to set the fast times, and everyone else is going to have to beat us. We get the first runs this year.”
Tomberlin, who won the downhill and combined championships in 1971, organized the reunion and expects to see 20 to 40 participants in weekend racing. Tomberlin was the “skimeister” in 1971 for being the top high school skier in Colorado to compete in both alpine and Nordic disciplines.
The 1971 team was a special group coached by Jerry Davis. The Demons won state that year for the fifth time in six years.
Yeager went on to compete in two Olympics in cross-country skiing in 1972 in Japan and in 1976 in Austria. Tomberlin noted Yeager wasn’t at the 1971 Colorado High School State Ski Championships because he was in Finland that weekend competing in the World Junior Championships.
Britt Lovelace, who won the 1971 Nordic championship for DHS, also was on the junior national team for cross-country racing, as was Brian Anderson, Mary Lee Atkins, Alita Crites, Mike Kuss and Fitz Neal.
Tomberlin also expects to see members of that team who have remained in Durango such as Atkins, Daryl Crites, Mary El Hogan-Emrich and Jack Turner.
“We will see three generations of Durango skiers there with children and grandchildren also there to participate,” Tomberlin said.
Back in 1971, high school skiing included speed events such as downhill along with ski jumping, unlike today’s age of CHSAA skiing that only features slalom, giant slalom and two Nordic events.
That will be reflected a bit with this weekend’s schedule. From 10 a.m. until 3 p.m. Saturday, alumni will race down the NASTAR course at Purgatory in slalom. Then, Tomberlin said the group will meet at 1 p.m. atop Upper Hades, where the state giant slalom was held in 1971, for a free ride competition with two judging criteria. The first is who does the best jump off the Camel Back, the second is who does the best turn.
“Free ride is the new thing, so we wanted to do it,” Tomberlin said. “Then we will gather at Sow’s Ear at 4 p.m. for an outdoor award ceremony and announce the new “skimeister” for whoever does the best in free ride and the racing.”
Any alumni interested in participating from the 1971 team will receive a free lift ticket for Purgatory Resort on Saturday. Turner will be there to hand them out after working with Purgatory to secure the tickets.
“It’s amazing it ended up being the same date as 50 years ago,” Tomberlin said.
jlivingston@durangoherald.com
