STORY AND PHOTOS BY KAREN BOSSICK
She didn’t have a bouncy house. Or pin-the-tail-on-a-donkey games.
But Dorothy Ann Outzs couldn’t have been happier as she celebrated her 96th birthday Tuesday with three dozen friends cheering as she dug her plastic fork into a moist slice of white cake with white icing.
It wasn’t really a birthday party but, rather, the 15th annual Ladies Tea put on by Ketchum’s Community Library to honor the Ladies of the Blaine County Heritage Court.
But Outzs, the daughter of a former Blaine County Sheriff, was happy to pair the two.
“I should’ve known I’d live so long. My mother was born in Hailey in1900 and she lived a hundred years,” she said of her mother Mary who co-founded the county historical museum in 1964.”Big Irish family come here to work in the mines. Mining sure brought a lot of people to the valley.”
Teddie Dayley, who has been with the Heritage Court since its beginnings, introduced the four women who will be crowned during a festive coronation ceremony at 3 p.m. Sunday, June 10, at the Liberty Theatre in Hailey.
The women—Faye Hatch Barker, JoAnn Levy, April MacLeod and LaVon Olsen—wore dark blue denim skirts with pleats on the bottom and pockets handy for keys and handkerchiefs.
“It’s inspiring to be in a room that made a difference,” said Community Library Director Jenny Emery Davidson, looking around a former Forest Service building that now houses one of Ketchum’s early bank vaults and a collection of Sun Valley’s early ski apparel . “And it’s inspiring to be among women like you who made a difference, who built this community. You all have done tremendous things in the community—we’re glad to have you here.”
Over tuna fish and cucumber sandwiches and Mike Healy’s iced cookies boasting hearts, bunnies and flowers, the women recounted some of their contributions.
Lady Denise Thomas told a small group of women how she had collected Black Eyed Susan seeds and scattered them along roads around West Magic 30 years ago.
“I thought we might have lost them when they paved the road,” she said. “But they came up.”
“Digging up the area to pave the road probably just spread them further,” Lady Wendy Collins told her.
Though the women are now in their 70s,80sand 90s, they’re still contributing to the communities in which they live.
Collins, for instance, is still teaching women the art of shooting at the Sun Valley Gun Club, while officiating over many a valley wedding. She expects to do about three a month this summer, ranging from large weddings at Galena Lodge and Trail Creek Cabin to smaller affairs along favorite hiking and riding trails.
And Lady Grace Eakin was quick to remind everyone that the Bellevue Museum where she volunteers would open for the summer season on Memorial Day and remain open from noon to 4 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays through Labor Day.
“We have a few new things from Crystal Harper,” she said, of a longtime Bellevue resident who passed away in December 2016--six months after her 111th birthday. “A couple quilts dating to 1900, some new dishes, things like that.”
Ketchum Mayor Neil Bradshaw, who can’t pass up a good tea given his childhood growing up in Zimbabwe, told the women that people like them made his job easier.
“I’ve seen the impact that women have had in this community, starting with the women who built and have served on the board of this magical library. And yesterday we honored our first fire captain Tory Canfield. None of this happens unless the groundwork has been laid. And you guys have created the groundwork.”
Dayley said she has made many new friends among the 62 women that have been honored by the Heritage Court for their contribution to the Wood River Valley.
“And even though I volunteer with the Blaine County Museum, I’ve learned a lot from them about what people did in this valley and how they’ve kept things working,” she said. “I’ve especially learned a lot about skiing because I’ve never skied—and that’s a big part of Sun Valley’s heritage.”