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 SNOWSPORTS BUILDER AWARD

The Association adds in 2008 a Snowsports Builder Award to complement its suite of service awards. This award
recognizes an individual or teams that have made a contribution to benefit the sport, a contribution that has made
an indelible impact on the sport. This impact has made a positive difference that cannot be erased. Such
contributions are not limited to any particular sector of industry or society or the sports. They can come from
manufacturing, athletics, travel, journalism, electronic or print media, government, academia, snowsports teaching
and safety. The award may be made annually.

Harry Leonard / Jerry Simon
INVENTORS AND IMPRESARIOS OF THE SKI SHOWS

John Watson, Chairman, History Committee
(Information from Bernie Weichsel and Doug Pfeifer greatly appreciated)

The SKI SHOWS are considered an irreplaceable season kickoff for skiers and their clubs and councils. They
provide recruiting opportunities and potential support for always thin treasuries. And they provide viewing of new
equipment, travel opportunities and the latest in daring ski maneuvers – the Wow! factor. But the traveling ski
shows are only 50 years old and their birth and development are due to the imagination and passion of two
gentlemen, ambassadors of skiing Harry Leonard and Jerry Simon. The advent of the ski shows, held in
principal cities around the nation, provided an absolutely essential impetus for the growth of skiing from 1960 to
today. The development of the ski shows proceeded hand in hand with participation from councils and clubs and
their growth nationwide in the years after the 1960 Squaw Olympics is due in no small part to this collaboration.

The Ski Shows started as the Ski Fair, the first-ever consumer ski show, in 1958 when Chicago Metro Ski Council
asked Harry to produce its preseason party. Harry had already produced by himself a 64 page guide to skiing in
the Midwest called Ski Faring. That first Ski Fair attracted 2000 people and Harry realized that this could be
much more than a party. He added Detroit and New York within two years and by the mid 1960s had expanded to
the West Coast. By that time Harry was producing nine ski shows in addition to club shows and smaller efforts
on college campuses. Jerry Simon added his imagination to the development of the ski shows in 1964.

The Ski Shows brought the mountain and après ski excitement to the city. They brought entertainment,
celebrities, travel reps, racers, freestylers, movies and seminars on equipment to the people. The ski shows
pioneered the use of the ski deck, the moving carpet and ramps to provide for aerials by freestylers upon its
introduction to skisport. Then there were the fashion shows led by Barbara Alley, the beer garden, lectures and
seminars, mechanics and ski shop workshops, and ski swaps. Skiers could come and meet the superstars of
skiing’s Golden Age Stein Eriksen, Penny Pitou, Billy Kidd, Jean-Claude Killy, Roger Staub, Art Furrer, Suzy
Chaffee, Tony Sailer, Pepi Steigler, Wayne Wong and many others. They sold skiing to the nation at a time when

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television was rather ignoring our sport. Tens of thousands of baby boomers came to our sport by first attending a
ski show put on by Harry and Jerry.

From the travel seminars at the ski shows grew the Simon productions of ‘What’s New in Ski Wear’ for TV, the
International Ski Film Festival, the touring Skiing Mechanic’s and Manager’s Workshop and the springtime travel
trade shows, SkiGroup. SkiGroup started in 1976, grew to a 30-city tour that lasted for 25 years. SkiGroup was
such a strong sales aid for Austria that Jerry was awarded the ‘Order of the Eagle’ by the Austrian National
Tourist Board.

Barbara Alley met Jerry Simon while she was a weekend ski instructor at Hunter Mountain NY and when he
discovered she had studied fashion design he recruited her to the Ski Shows. Barbara Alley produced and narrated
fashion shows for industry and TV shows in addition to those for the Ski Shows from 1968-1995. She was
Skiwear Fashion Editor for SKIING Magazine for six years and in 1988 launched this function for the new Snow
Country magazine. Her work with SKIING earned her the title of ‘First Lady of Skiing Fashion.’ In the early
1990s her productions were on a grand scale with Las Vegas dancers.

When the ski shows come to town, there is another oft-overlooked product. This is the effect of media tie-ins that
support the ski industry of the local area and become the basis for special TV and print sections. These tie-ins
provide exposure for the sport well beyond show attendees and the committed skier. Harry and Jerry received the
Carson White Golden Quill Award from the North American Ski Journalists Association (NASJA) in 2005 for
exceptional service to all skiers.

The start and formative years of the ski shows were due to the imagination of the impresarios and they were for
the skier and by the skier – the skiers of the local councils and clubs. Thank you, Harry Leonard and Jerry
Simon, for your friendship and support.