New England Ski Museum to honor Tom Corcoran with award

New England Ski Museum to honor Tom Corcoran with award{mosimage}FRANCONIA NOTCH, New Hampshire — The New England Ski Museum will present its new Spirit of Skiing award to Tom Corcoran, the founder of Waterville Valley Resort, at its 29th annual meeting Sept. 23 at the Waterville Valley Conference Center.

The award is intended to recognize a person whose life exemplifies the memorable adage that ‘skiing is not just a sport, it is a way of life,’ and who has influenced skiing in a positive manner and enabled others to benefit from the sport.

“Every skier has their own conception of the soul of skiing,” notes Museum President Glenn Parkinson. ” Tom Corcoran, with his competition background and resort building experience, represents an important aspect of the essence of skiing and is an excellent choice for our first award.”

Corcoran graduated from Dartmouth in 1954, at a time when the ski team there overshadowed the American collegiate racing scene. In addition to Corcoran, Ralph Miller, Bill Beck, Brooks Dodge and Chick Igaya raced for the college and then became fixtures of the U.S. Olympic teams through the end of the decade.

Corcoran raced in the 1956 and 1960 Winter Olympics, and at Squaw Valley his fourth-place finish in the GS was the highest by an American man in the event to that time.

After several years in the early 1960s as assistant to the president of Aspen Skiing Co., he moved back east to begin the process of building Waterville Valley. Within three years of its 1966 opening, Waterville Valley recorded the most skier visits in the state. It hosted the first national freestyle competition in the country in 1971, and it became known for a long succession of World Cup competitions held there in the 1970s through the 1990s.

The museum’s annual meeting is open to members and non-members alike.
The event begins with a reception and silent auction at 5 p.m., continues through dinner and concludes with a talk by Corcoran on his years in skiing.

Located in Franconia Notch next to the Cannon Mountain Tramway, the New
England Ski Museum is a non-profit, member-supported museum dedicated
to collecting, preserving and exhibiting aspects of ski history. The museum
is open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. seven days a week from Memorial Day through the
end of March. Admission is free. For more information call 800-639-4181 or visit
www.skimuseum.org.