SAM Magazine-Ishpeming, Mich., Oct. 16, 2008-American ski mountaineering pioneer and famed instructor Bill Briggs joins the U.S. Ski Team's Liz McIntyre, Nelson Carmichael, and Cary Adgate as this year's inductees into the U.S. National Ski and Snowboard Hall of Fame. The induction ceremony will take place in April.

Briggs became a fully certified instructor in 1955 and founded the Bill Brigg's Ski School at Suicide Six Ski Area in 1958. With three companions, he made the first 100-mile traverse from the Bugaboos to Rogers Pass, BC in 1958. He then made a series of first-ski-descents, most famously on the Grand Teton in 1971. He founded the Great American Ski School, which models his own ski teaching ideology and technique, and is still director of the Snow King Ski School in Jackson, Wyoming.

McIntyre's career spanned 20 years with the U.S. Ski Team, first as an athlete on the freestyle moguls squad from 1986 to 1998, then as the moguls technical coach from 1999 to 2006. The culmination of her career came during the 1994 Olympics in Lillehammer where she earned the silver medal. McIntyre also won four World Cup events (all in Tignes, France).

Carmichael, a Steamboat Springs native, won the World Cup mogul championship in 1988 and 1989. At the 1992 Olympics in Albertville, France, he won bronze when freestyle debuted as an Olympic sport. During his career, he won six U.S. Championships and 12 World Cup events.

Adgate was a Midwesterner who made his first race turns on Boyne Mountain in Michigan. The 1971 U.S. Junior National champion, Adgate also won the 1973 Can-Am overall and GS crowns. He earned U.S. Alpine Championship titles in slalom or combined six times, and was a member of the U.S. Olympic teams in 1976 and 1980. As a pro racer, he was the only skier to win back-to-back races in a pro debut, eventually earning 25 professional victories and the 1984 U.S. Pro Championships. In a sign of longevity, in 2005 he won three U.S. Masters Championship events and was named Ski Racing Magazine's 2005 Master Racer of the Year. He currently is Boyne USA Resorts' Snowsports Ambassador. \

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