Talk:Whip Jones

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[edit] Alternate Names and Google Searching

When searching for Whip Jones online, one must remember that much of his accomplishments occured prior to the digital word. When searching on google try these variations. These links search to Google and ghits as of 12/19/2001:

- BMcCJ 16:54, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Alternate Biographies Online

Because of the AfD discussion, I suggest considering the following articles and if appropriate improving the main article by quoting and citing these. If you see something that would really enhance the main article, please cut/paste/cite as appropriate. We can remove this discussion later, after the AfD (each article has the link to the original source:

  • Also, here is a link to the an early version of the page. There may be some snippets here to include and reference as well. I'm really trying to give some "soul" to this biography. early version Warning: only cut/paste from this old one, saving it will overwrite the current/live version.

-BMcCJ 69.19.14.26 02:47, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Ski Magazine[1]

In truth, Aspen locals have never been sure how to deal with the Highlands, with or without the bowl. When the mountain first opened in 1958, founded by Whipple Van Ness Jones, a maverick businessman from St. Louis by way of Harvard, some welcomed it and some scorned it. Naysayers included the Aspen Skiing Company, which owned Aspen Mountain and was just starting to erect lift towers on nearby Buttermilk. ASC turned down an offer from Jones to run his lifts, then spent the next 35 years alternately trying to buy Highlands or bury it. Those original ASC owners, Jones liked to say, were Yale men. Eventually he sued the company for antitrust violations, winning $10 million. But it was a short-lived victory for Jones, who still couldn't afford to run the resort over the long term and donated it in 1993 to Harvard, which turned around and promptly sold it to Gerald Hines, a Houston-based developer and part-time Aspenite. Hines then started building a new base village and brought in ASC to operate the mountain...Highlands set its rowdy tone in the 1960s, when patrol leader Charlie Bolte created The Bash for Cash, a deranged, mass-start event where racers skied the most direct line to a pot of money at the bottom of one of Highlands' steepest runs. "We started it each week by blowing up a case of dynamite," recalled Whip Jones. And that was rarely the equal of the fireworks during the race. At the insistence of nervous insurance companies, both the dynamiting and the races were stopped long ago, but their spirit (and a faint whiff of mayhem and cordite) still lingers.SnowNet.de - SKI MAGAZINE- THE OTHER ASPEN

[edit] Aspen Historical Society[2]

[In the 1950s,] Aspen's ski business was growing in more places than Aspen Mountain and Buttermilk. Aspen Highlands opened the same season that Buttermilk did, the product of primarily one man. Whipple Van Ness Jones first visited Aspen in the winter of 1947-48 to confirm the rumors he had heard about Aspen's new ski area. Raised in Wisconsin and graduated from Harvard Business School, Whip Jones returned in 1949 to attend the Goethe Bicentennial. He so enjoyed the event and Aspen in the summer that he bought a house from Walter Paepcke's son-in-law the next year and moved in during 1951. Four or five years later Jones decided to purchase some land where he could live and raise some horses, so he bought the Highlands base area property from Had Deane, who owned the T Lazy 7 ranch. Initially Jones had no intentions of running a ski area at all. His new neighbors introduced him to the idea in 1957. Had Deane, Dick Wright, and Pat Henry asked Jones if he would like to invest in a ski area proposal an Sievers Mountain behind Deane's property at the mouth of Willow Creek. Paul Hauk, the local Forest Service ranger, inspected the site and found the base area too cramped and the lower slopes too steep for a viable ski area. Hauk noticed, however, the skiing potential of the Highland Peak area behind Jones' property and encouraged Jones to consider developing a major ski area there. During the late 1950s, when ski areas were beginning to boom and few realized the degree of their environmental impact, the U.S. Forest Service played advocate rather than resisting ski area development. They encouraged Jones to build because Aspen Mountain had become too crowded.

Whip Jones thus set about discovering the potential of his backyard and the forest service land beyond it for skiing. In August and September 1957 Jones trekked up and down the mountainside with Hauk, Dick Durrance, Friedl Pfeifer, and Fred Iselin, who all gave positive reports on the area. After more visits by Forest Service people and studies by Durrance and other consultants, Whip Jones accepted a 30-year lease on approximately 4,200 acres of National Forest land and signed it on April 16, 1958. Jones had approached the Aspen Skiing Corporation that past September to see if they wanted to participate in the development of Highlands, but they did not. Then president William Hodges explained, as he had to Pfeifer, that the Aspen Skiing Corporation had its hands full managing Aspen Mountain. Like Pfeifer, Whip Jones decided to develop a ski area on his own. He hired Pete Seibert, a 10th Mountain Division veteran and ski racer, and Earl Eaton, former head of the ski patrol on Aspen Mountain. Both had been working at Loveland Basin and agreed to come to Highlands and lay out trails and lift line corridors. Seibert became mountain manager, Eaton organized the ski patrol, and Stein Erikson helped lay out trails and became head of the ski school. Aspen Highlands opened for the 1958-59 season with two chair lifts, a T-bar, and a short rope tow.

During its first season Highlands had almost 30,000 skier-visits, compared to 93,000 on Aspen Mountain and 16,400 on Buttermilk. Stein Erikson did much to promote Aspen Highlands as ski school director—he was a well-known racer from Norway who had first come to Aspen for the 1950 FIS championships and became famous for doing flips on skis. Jones attributed much of Highland's early growth to Erikson's notoriety, but no one could approach Fred Iselin's charm and charisma. Aspen Highlands continued its success, especially after Fred Iselin became director of the ski school during the 1964-65 season. Iselin had come from Switzerland in 1939 and taught skiing in Yosemite, Sun Valley, and finally Aspen. In addition to his skiing talents, Iselin had a capacity for humor that set him apart from every other ski instructor or spokesman. He had fun skiing and taught everyone else to have fun, too. Paul Hauk even attributed the change from dark to colorful ski fashions to Iselin. Aspen Highlands' success resulted from a variety of factors. It had new terrain in a time and place where skiing demand was outgrowing Aspen Mountain. It had famous, interesting ski school directors and lower rates than those of the Skiing Corporation. After 1959 it had a bus system to bring skiers from Aspen to Highlands and back, and it had more snowfall and a better view than both Aspen Mountain and Buttermilk.


[edit] COLORADO SKI HALL OF FAME[3]

WHIPPLE "WHIP" VAN NESS JONES 2000 Colorado Ski Hall of Fame Inductee


Whip Jones has become a legend in Colorado as the builder and owner of internationally renowned Aspen Highlands, one of the four great ski areas of Aspen. He first skied at Aspen in 1947 and within a few years had bought a house in town and moved in.

Aspen Highlands had its beginning in 1956. Whip owned the land at the base of the mountain and became interested in developing it after the Forest Service suggested it would be a "great place for a ski area." Whip first offered the opportunity to Aspen Skiing Corporation who turned it down.

From then on it was full steam ahead. He hired Dick Durrance to do a feasibility study and Fritz Benedict to design a lodge. When the area opened in 1958 it had three lifts, including the world's longest single section double chairlift. Stein Erickson headed up the ski school and later Fred Islin. Aspen Highlands soon became known throughout Colorado as the affordable, laid-back ski area with the longest vertical in the state.

Whip's vision and marketing ingenuity proved invaluable when he had to compete with the larger Aspen Ski Corporation and its three-area ski ticket (Ajax Mountain, Buttermilk and Snowmass.) His innovative marketing lured many a skier to the Highlands with the promise of fun. Many Coloradans remember with nostalgia the wine and cheese parties, Stein Erickson's flips on skis, and the opening of Steeplechase near the top of Loge Peak--a steep, avalanche-prone slope that gave expert skiers a taste of adventure.

In 1992, after the longest continuous ownership of any ski area in Colorado, Whip Jones donated the Highlands stock to his Alma Mater, Harvard University. Eventually the Aspen Skiing Company agreed to buy the area and today, Highlands is part of the four- mountain Aspen ski complex under common management.

Whip Jones has made a lasting contribution to skiing in the state through his vision, hard work, and creative marketing. He was inducted into the Colorado Ski Hall of Fame in October, 2000.


[edit] OBITUARY[4]

Whipple "Whip" Van Ness Jones, 91, of Las Vegas, NV died June 29, 2001, in Tallahassee, FL. Funeral services will be held in Aspen, Colorado July 10, 2001 at 2:00 PM at Christ Episcopal Church (536 West North Street) with burial to follow. A Requiem Mass will be celebrated July 20, 2001 at 11:00 AM at St. John's Episcopal Church, 211 North Monroe Street, Tallahassee, Florida. In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions may be made to Christ Episcopal Church, Aspen, Colorado or St. John's Episcopal Church, Tallahassee, Florida.

Mr. Jones was born November 8, 1909 in Oconomowoc, Wisconsin, the son of Frank and Esther (Whipple) Jones. He was a long time businessman in Aspen, Colorado, where, in 1958, he developed and operated the internationally renowned Aspen Highlands ski area. In 1992, after the longest continuous ownership of any ski area in Colorado Mr. Jones donated Aspen Highlands to his Alma Mater, Harvard University. He also built and operated The Smuggler, one of Aspen's first ski lodges.

In 1998 he was inducted into the Aspen Hall of Fame and in October, 2000, he was inducted into the Colorado Ski Hall of Fame. Following his induction into the Aspen Hall of Fame a ski run at Aspen Highlands was renamed "Whip's Veneration" to honor the founder of the ski area.

Before World War II, Mr. Jones was a Captain in the Missouri State Guard and worked as a Trust Officer at St. Louis Union Trust, Co.. At the outbreak of the war Mr. Jones transferred to the Army Air Corps and rose to the rank of Lt. Col.

An avid sports enthusiast, Mr. Jones was the Aspen men's singles tennis champion in the t60's as well as a skilled hunter, fisherman and trap shooter. In recent years the game of golf occupied much of Mr. Jones' leisure time and he continued playing almost up to the time of his death.

Mr. Jones was a member of Kappa Sigma Fraternity, The St. Louis Country Club, The Maroon Creek Club in Aspen and Spanish Trails in Las Vegas. Mr. Jones was a John Harvard Fellow with Harvard University and a Paul Harris Fellow with Rotary International and a member of Christ Episcopal Church, Aspen.

Mr. Jones is survived by four sons, Richard McCulloch Jones of Boca Raton, Florida, Whipple Van Ness Jones, Jr. of Tallahassee, Florida, Carey Etnier Jones of Carbondale, Colorado and Andrew Doremus of Aspen, Colorado; two daughters Diane Carroll Blow of Greenwich, Connecticut and Melanie Mathilde Roseberry of Dillon Beach, CA his daughter Daphne Van Ness Jones predeceased him; 20 grandchildren and 23 great-grandchildren.

(Beggs Funeral Homes Apalachee Parkway Chapel, Tallahassee, Florida and Farnum Funeral Home, Glenwood Springs, Colorado)


69.19.14.26 03:59, 17 December 2006 (UTC) (BMcCJ, I'm behind the firewall) 69.19.14.31 03:19, 19 December 2006 (UTC) BMcCJ, ditto