Heritage Court 2019
Connie Grabow
She had the unique experience of caring for the poet Robert Frost briefly as the poet lived out his last days near Harvard where she was attending college. And she regrets that she didn’t invite a young John F. Kennedy to coffee when she spotted him walking through the halls one evening, his shoulders slumped.
Connie Grabow brought a lifetime of such experiences to Sun Valley in 1980. And in the 39 years since, she’s created a lifetime of new experiences, helping to grow the Community Library, raising funds for the hospital and serving meals for Souper Supper and The Hunger Coalition.
“Thirty-nine years here—I’ve been here longer than any place else. My children live here. My grandson and granddaughter went to school here…I have real roots here,” she said.
What Grabow’s cultivated here have not gone unnoticed. The City of Ketchum nominated her this year to the 2019 Blaine County Historical Museum Heritage Court.
Pam Rayborn
She was known as the Queen of the Silver Dollar for her penchant for dancing. And at 70 Pamela Rayborn is still dancing.
You may even catch her dancing across the stage today when she is crowned as part of the 2019 Blaine County Heritage Court, along with Verla Goitiandia, Connie Grabow and Judy Peterson. The event will take place at 3 p.m. today—Sunday, June 9—at the Liberty Theatre in Hailey. Open to the public, it will include entertainment and refreshments.
“I’ll be crowned as Lady Pam because the sash on which they print our names is so short. But I’ve always been known as Pamela,” said Rayborn.
JoAnn Levy
JoAnn Levy Embodies the Aloha Spirit.
Her license plate says “Aloha O.”
And JoAnn Levy has always striven to impart the aloha spirit to Sun Valley—her paradise on earth.
“ ‘Aloha’ is a way of thinking and a way of being,” said the Hawaiian native. “I practice aloha. I work at being friendly and making people happy.”
Levy’s efforts to do her part to create a Sun Valley paradise have prompted her to take on a variety of tasks from serving as mayor of Sun Valley to being a faithful donor of furniture, clothes and books to the Gold Mine thrift store.
Vonnie Olsen
Vonnie Olsen had no idea the adventure that awaited her when she married the milkman of Carey.
When heavy snows came, even she was pressed into collecting and delivering the milk.
“Paul would collect the cans of milk and take them to the Kraft plant,” she said. “And when everything got snowed in, you couldn’t get to the places where they had the cans because nothing was plowed. So we’d commandeer all our friends who had snow machines and everyone would go out and collect the cans of milk. If we hadn’t done that, the milk would have gone to waste.”