Charles “Chic” Morton, 80—Chic Morton started his 50-year association with Alta, Utah, with a bartending job at Alta Lodge, which led in turn to his becoming the lodge’s manager in 1951, and seven years later to becoming manager of the whole resort. It was during the 30 years he held this position that Morton developed the people-oriented, plain-wrapper style of management that became a hallmark of the Alta experience.
Morton was active in ski area organization, serving as president of Utah and Intermountain ski area organizations. For his years of promoting Utah tourism, Morton was honored as the first member of Utah’s Tourism Hall of Fame. He also served a stint as a board member of NSAA.
Alf Engen, 88—It is hard in today’s context to appreciate the extraordinary competitive record carved out by Alf Engen in the 1930s and 1940s. The greatest skiers in those days excelled as four-event men: jumping, cross-country, downhill and slalom. The best of them started as jumpers and then learned the other disciplines. So it was with Alf Engen, who was twice national jumping champion (1940 and 1946) and twice national nordic combined champion (1939 and 1941). He was downhill/slalom combined champion in 1942. In addition, he is in the record books as the National Ski Association’s Four-Event Ski Champion in 1940 and 1941. Engen also was nordic coach of the 1948 U.S. Olympic Ski Team.
Engen, as a consultant to the Forest Service, also played a role in the design of a number of western ski resorts, including Jackson Hole, Alta and Bogus Basin.
The role he liked best, teaching, he performed as director of the Alf Engen Ski School at Alta for 40 years, from its founding in 1948 until he retired in 1989. During his long career, Engen received many honors, including induction in 1959 into the U.S. National Ski Hall of Fame.
Claude Anders, 73—For almost 25 years, Claude Anders presided over the ski and year-round operations of Ober Gatlinburg in Tennessee. He was responsible in 1973 for installing the Von Roll tramway, with 120-passenger cabins, that took passengers 2.1 miles from the village up to the ski area. For a long time it was heralded as “the world’s largest;” today it is still “America’s largest.”
Anders was a steady supporter of skiing, whose first addition to the bankrupt ski operation he bought from the town was a five-acre artificial-surface ski slope that guaranteed customers year-round skiing, with or without snow.
