Heritage Court 2010
Sally Donart
The evergreens that Sally Donart planted outside her cabin retreat-like home north of Ketchum four decades ago now stretch 40 and 50 feet into the blue Sun Valley sky.
The other seeds she planted have grown just as much.
A bill she championed in the 1960s paved the way for mental health services in communities across Idaho. The Crisis Hotline she helped start has grown to be a vital part of the Wood River Valley. And the smart land use practices she championed as editor of the Ketchum Tomorrow newspaper have helped maintain the quality of life in the Sun Valley area, even as growth as taken Ketchum beyond the two paved roads that were here when Donart first came for a visit.
Phyllis Stelma
Got tresses? Phyllis Stelma has probably permed them, cut them or combed them out.
Stelma has done the hair of both the rich and famous in Sun Valley and the miner’s wives in Bellevue for 63 years.
Even at 81, she still takes up her hair scissors on occasion.
“I did Mrs. Harrah’s hair—she wanted to take me back to Reno with her. I did Janet Leigh and Mary Hemingway’s—they would order lunch from Sun Valley while they sat under the driers. And when I opened my own shop in Bellevue, Jeanne Moritz—Dr. Moritz’s wife—would come all the way down to get her hair done,” recalls Phyllis, who charged $1.50 for a cut and $3.50 for a perm during the 1950s.
Jean Pyrah
Jean Pyrah didn’t sew her first quilt stitch until she was 70. Now—20 years later—she’s made more than a hundred.
The 90-year-old has made queen-sized quilts for each of her seven children and her 25 grandchildren and baby-sized quilts for each of her 60 great-grandchildren.
“I can name all of the grandchildren and great-grandchildren, too,” she said. “But I don’t know how. I can’t remember where I put my glasses six minutes ago.”
Everyone, it seems, knows Jean Pyrah’s name around Carey. After all, she’s lived there for 75 years—ever since she moved there from Arco during high school.
Fern Stephenson
If it had been up to Fern Stephenson, she might never have made her home in the Wood River Valley—not with the temperature dipping to 34 degrees the night she attended the Fourth of July rodeo.
But her husband Frank was smitten by the hunting and fishing opportunities the Sun Valley area offered during the family’s vacation trip through the area. And, so, in 1966 the Stephensons said goodbye to the triple-digit heat of Phoenix and headed north to Hailey.
“I couldn’t understand how people could live in the snow with their hands getting cold and all,” said Fern, who was inducted on Sunday into the Blaine County Heritage Court. “But Frank said: ‘You can always put on more clothes to keep warm, but you can’t do much to keep cool.