Twenty Years Ago

From October/November 1979 issues:

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• The results of the 1979 city elections are in.

Sun Valley voters elected Dick Heckmann as mayor for a four-year term and Ruth Lieder and Joe Humphrey to the four-year city council positions. All three candidates were endorsed by the Mountain Express.

A total 204 of 235 registered voters (87%) turned out at the polls.

Heckmann, a 35-year-old independent businessman who campaigned on a platform of accessible government, won 124 votes (61%) and challenger Royce Asher, 50, a two-term city councilman, earned 78 votes.

Lieder, 48, a Smith College graduate and freelance copywriter, was the top vote-getter in the city council race with 160 ballots in her favor. Humphrey, 43, an independent electrical engineer from Reno, Nev. had 98 votes. Out of the money in third place was Mike Martin, 36, with 74 votes.

In Ketchum, unopposed incumbent Josef Koenig, 41, a native of Austria who was the original builder and owner of The Tyrolean Lodge, won a two-year city council seat with 278 votes.

Sue Wolford, 38, an eight-year Ketchum resident and a single parent, and Tom Held, 35, a builder from California, were the top vote-getters for four-year council seats with 244 and 168 votes, respectively.

Out of the money in third place was write-in candidate Tom Monge, 31, a real estate appraiser from Illinois, with 111 votes.

Ketchum Mayor Jerry Seiffert ran unopposed and won a second term.

The Mountain Express endorsed Seiffert, Koenig, Wolford and Monge.

A total 317 of 657 registered voters (48%) turned out at the polls.

Ketchum voters approved the beer and wine tax by a 247 to 70 margin (78%). The vote served to clarify the voters’ intent in the 1978 local option tax election.

Election results in Hailey were apparently a backlash against a commercial area in the recently-annexed Northridge Subdivision north of Hailey. The successful candidates elected in 1979 generally supported tight growth control.

In Hailey, Wordell Rainey (243 votes) defeated Verbon Murphee (186) for a two-year city council term.

Rainey, a lifelong Blaine County resident and insurance agent, opposed commercial zoning at Northridge. Murphee, a restaurant owner who used to work for the Corps of Army Engineers, was a strong supporter of Northridge commercial zoning.

Winning four-year city council terms were Hailey Postmaster and Carey native Grant Patterson (225 votes) and Catholic priest and "no growth" candidate Don Fraser (173). Patterson, a former lift mechanic and painter for Sun Valley Company, had served 10 years on the Hailey Planning and Zoning Commission.

Rounding out the vote-getters were retired attorney V.K. Jeppesen 142, dental receptionist Carol Cutler 129, musician Joe Maccarillo 128 and electrician Phil Sisti 34.

The Mountain Express endorsed Rainey, Patterson and Fraser.

A total 439 of 559 registered voters (79%) turned out at the polls in Hailey.

 

• Ketchum’s most visible corner will be completely remodeled inside and out this winter.

Slavey’s will become "Slavey’s Red Robin Saloon," complete with exterior and interior renovations.

The bar’s new owners, Gerald Kingen of Seattle and John Beaupre of Ketchum, hope to open the new restaurant by the end of Jan. 1980.

Kingen, president of the Red Robin restaurant chain, is partnered in Ketchum with local restaurant operator Beaupre of The Ore House.

 

• Gem State Airlines announced that it would terminate service in Idaho, Washington, Nevada and Utah.

President Justin Colin of Gem State Airlines said the company was pulling out because of the re-entry of Hughes Airwest into the Idaho market. Hughes Airwest could offer discount fares, helped by a federal subsidy, with which Gem State Airlines couldn’t compete, he said.

The airline, which began connecting major Idaho cities with the Wood River Valley in 1978, used bigger planes than the other carrier serving the Hailey airport—Mountain West Airlines.

"We are trying to assess the problem and are in a kind of wait-and-see position," said Jed Gray, director of the local Resort Association.

 

• Building activity increased in Ketchum for 1979, according to figures released by Ketchum Building Inspector Wes Nash. The increase in permits issued was 25%, from 116 in 1978 to 154 in 1979.

The biggest increase in residential construction came in duplexes, from 15 in 1978 to 48 in 1979.

Ketchum’s high-water year was 1972 when 241 permits were issued. In recent years, Nash said, construction has been controlled by sewer permit allocation systems.

 

• Rosemary Bergin, 19, was buried in Bellevue Cemetery. A victim of cancer of three months duration, she died at St. Luke’s Hospital, Boise.

Bergin, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Joe Bergin of Bellevue, was a member of Wood River High School’s state championship cross country team of 1975. She graduated from Wood River in 1978 and went to work for Bill Mallory at a Ketchum bakery.

Among pallbearers at Rosemary’s funeral were her running coach, Wood River High teacher Bob Shay Sr., and fellow Atkinsons’ Market employee Monte Brothwell. Bergin and Brothwell were the female and male winners of the inaugural Ketchum Ten Mile Run in 1976.

After Rosemary’s death, Wood River High School instituted the Rose Bergin Memorial Award, which is given annually to an athlete on the track or cross country teams.

 

• Joe McNeal, a member of the winning Klue Kuest scavanger hunt team, attributed his amazing intelligence in helping to solve 20 clues to eating fish—brain food—for a solid week before the Kuest meeting.

Trina and Joe McNeal, Pam and John Wells, and Cally and Amos Galpin were members of the winning team among 20 teams and 120 persons on the fall hunt.

 

• The Community School boys’ soccer team completed a 7-1 season by winning the first-ever Southern Idaho Soccer League tournament championship with a 4-1 victory over Dietrich, at Gooding.

Michael Tobin scored three goals in the first half and Deeder Petersen finished the scoring for the Cutthroats, coached by Richard Hislaire and John Rember. Other team members were Sean Petersen, goalkeeper Alan Bancroft, Mat Hal, Chip Atkinson, Jeff Sarchett, Chuck Lee, Jill Caywood, Todd Ackerman and Cara Forstmann.

 

• The University of Ketchum’s board of trustees sent a spoof of a letter inviting the Univ. of Notre Dame football team to play Ketchum’s varsity football team in the 1979 Homecoming game.

Game time was scheduled for Nov. 10 at 1:05 p.m. at Ketchum’s Memorial Football Stadium. To sweeten the pot, the University of Ketchum board of trustees offered comfortable accommodations for the Fighting Irish at the newly-remodeled Alpenrose Hotel.

Members of the board of trustees were Dean Geoff Bushell, Lloyd Betts, Bryan Hall, Don Mason and Phil Carnahan. The subsequent Homecoming Dance in the Limelight Room of Sun Valley Inn was thrown open to all local citizens.

Oh, by the way, the University of Ketchum’s Student Union was located where?

Grumpy’s.