BY KAREN BOSSICK
Sun Valley resident Stephen Pauley has been selected Grand Marshal of the upcoming Wagon Days parade.
It’s a fitting tribute to a man who has championed dark skies, given the number of eyes that have been focused upwards this summer waiting for the Great American Eclipse and the hope that the Sun Valley area will be declared a Dark Skies Reserve.
“It’s a great honor,” said the almost-77-year-old Pauley, who calls himself “just an old guy who loves stars.”
Born in Los Angeles, Pauley received a BA from Pomona College in 1962, majoring in biology. After earning an MD degree from Columbia University he served as a submarine medical officer for the U.S. Navy.
It was a 17-day sailing trip from Newport Beach, Calif., to Honolulu with his wife Marilyn and their two sons in 1979 that sparked his interest in astronomy.
Pauley was overwhelmed by the beauty of the Milky Way and other treasures in the night sky when he moved from Laguna Beach, Calif., to Sun Valley in 1991. And he helped establish dark sky ordinances in Ketchum, Sun Valley, Hailey, Blaine County and even Ada County to help preserve those skies from light pollution for future generations.
He’s been instrumental in Ketchum’s efforts towards becoming an International Dark Sky Community, helping to shepherd a city ordinance regulating lighting in 2000. And he’s been active in the proposal to create the Central Idaho International Dark Sky Reserve.
Ketchum Mayor Nina Jonas said Pauley is at the top of the list of those who have worked to protect and improve the quality of life in Ketchum.
“The next time you’re out walking at night and have a chance to marvel at the great view of the cosmos, take a second to thank Dr. Pauley,” she added.
Pauley says the subject of light pollution was an easy one to fix because “it’s something that happens one light at a time.”
“This is a quality of life issue,” he added. “People want to move here and being able to see the stars so clearly and well at night is a selling point. There is also an economic aspect to this in drawing visitors interested in seeing stars. Half of our world is above us, and it’s nice to be able to see it.”
The weekend-long Wagon Days festival Sept. 1 through 3 celebrates the city’s mining heritage. It gets underway Friday, Sept. 1, with cowboy poetry at the Ore Wagon Museum. The centerpiece of the event is the Big Hitch Parade at 1 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 2. It is the biggest non-motorized parade in the Pacific Northwest with nearly a hundred museum-quality buggies, carriages, carts, stage coaches and wagons.
This year’s Wagon Days poster designed by Travis Amick is, fittingly, a photograph of the Lewis Ore Wagons under a night sky dotted with stars.