By DENNIS HIGMAN
Valley People
Despite the weather and down economy, Dick Haskell, who has managed the Sun Valley Gun Club for 12 years, is already open for business because the resort is running a "spring recreation package" through June 5. The package includes bargain-price lodging and a host of free activities, including skeet and trap shooting at the gun club.
"We're not exactly overrun with customers yet," says the trim, enthusiastic, 69-year-old who teaches skiing on Baldy and Dollar Mountain in the winter. "But if you dress warmly, it's a great time of year to shoot, and I guarantee you, if you come up, you'll get our full attention."
The gun club has been a Sun Valley institution since the resort opened. It's strictly a shotgun operation, offering trap, double trap, wobble trap, skeet, duck tower, five stand and sporting clays.
"While a lot of experienced, highly skilled people use our facility, I think we probably have more first-time shooters than any club in the country," Haskell says. "We get men who have never fired a gun, and a lot of women and kids, real novices, who come up to give it a try.
"I'm biased, of course, but I think we've got a great staff, a lot of 'mature guys' like me who collectively have a wealth of experience and stress safety first and foremost. We're here because we enjoy shooting and we get a great deal of satisfaction out of helping others enjoy it too."
Haskell feels the same way about teaching skiing.
"Frankly, my favorite kind of student is an adult beginner. They may be unsure, even scared at first, but if you keep them in their comfort zone, they are able to listen and learn. And at the end of the day when you see them making turns they never dreamed of making, you know you did something good for them."
Haskell first came to Sun Valley as a boy and later returned as a young man to work summers at the ice rink. Raised in Salt Lake City, he attended the University of Utah and tried psychology and architecture there before going on to commercial art school. Then he went off to see the world and have some fun.
"I guess you could say I didn't do too much with my education," he says with a laugh. "But in the end it all worked out for the best."
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Haskell ended up in Germany, joined the ski patrol at Garmisch and paid the rent by becoming a professional skater, jumping barrels and doing comedy routines in local ice shows. He eventually moved to England and did similar novelty skating acts and also tried to become an international auto racer.
"I was always fond of fast cars and actually got on the Lotus farm team—at least for a summer," he recalls. "I was a pretty good driver, but pretty good was not good enough in that league. I certainly was no Juan Fangio."
Fortunately, Haskell's skating attracted the attention of a representative of the Ice Follies and he returned to the states and continued to skate professionally in a series of shows, including Holiday on Ice, for eight years.
It was during that time that he bought his first Ferrari and developed a lifelong romance with exotic cars and amateur racing. Since then, Haskell has owned a half dozen Porsches, a couple of Jaguars, an Aston Martin and 17 Ferraris. He remembers his first Ferrari very well because it only cost him $2,600. He towed it behind his Oldsmobile Toronado from ice show to ice show, racing it on local circuits whenever he had time.
"I sold it for $2,600," Haskell recalls whimsically. "It's probably worth over $3 million now, but at the time, I thought it was a great deal!"
When it became apparent that the days of ice show extravaganzas were over and that the business was going to be dominated by Disney on Ice, Haskell knew it was time to quit jumping barrels and find a real career. He started with the company that produced Disney shows as a stage hand, eventually climbed through the ranks to vice president of operations and, in his 22-year career, produced Disney ice shows around the world.
During that time, he also became a partner in the group that built the indoor ice arena at Sun Valley and was an investor in the River House Bed and Breakfast in Ketchum. In 1996, Haskell retired and came back to Sun Valley to stay, launching his second career teaching skiing and running the gun club.
He lives in Ketchum with his wife, Kathy, a substitute teacher in the Blaine County School system. They have a 19-year-old son who entered Montana State this year and Haskell has a 32-year- old daughter who lives in Baltimore.
When he's not skiing or shooting, Haskell still likes to drive a good car. This winter he traded his Ferrari in on a 2006 Porsche Boxter. Will it be his last Ferrari?
"That's hard to say," he says with a smile.
