The Aspen Hall of Fame will celebrate its 30th Anniversary by inducting five outstanding community members.
On January 21, the Aspen Hall of Fame will turn 30 years old. In celebration of this big milestone, the organization will induct five new members.
The five inductees include: John and Cynthia Callahan, Lt. Col Richard Merritt, and Charlie and Fonda Paterson. These five were chosen by the 18-member Aspen Hall of Fame board of directors.
The Aspen Hall of Fame has provided information on each of the soon-to-be new inductees:
John and Cynthia Callahan:
The pair met in 1959 on a ski trip to Sun Valley. Within a year they married, moved to LA and started their family. Set on not raising their children in the city, the couple moved to Colorado and chose Aspen as their home.
John began his mountain career managing “The Center” at the base of Little Nel, and moved on to working for several years at Buttermilk as a ski instructor, patroller, and also joined the trail crew. He had a hand in cutting Tiehack Racer’s Edge, Javelin, Magic Carpet and Rabbit Run trails. On top of all of that John was a founding member of the Aspen Savings & Loan and board member of the Aspen Ski Club, was a Aspen Valley Hospital volunteer, and was an early member of the Mountain Rescue.
Cynthia was a huge member of the community;, she volunteered for many years with the Aspen School District’s Accountability Committee, the Aspen Thrift Shop, Aspen Historical Society, Aspen Ski Club, St. Mary’s Church, and Pitkin County 4-H. Cynthia housed many exchange students, families and visiting ski teams. She was a leader or the Roaring Fork Kennel Club, and was a huge part in bringing shows to Aspen.
Dick Merritt:
Lt.Col Richard Merritt, U.S. Marine Corps. (Ret.) was born in 1935 in Seattle and, raised in Enumclaw, a small town at the base of Mount Rainier. From a young age he had a great love for the outdoors and his drive for service took hold.
He earned the rank of Eagle Scout in high school, and worked summers fighting fires for the Washington Division of Forestry. He earned his Bachelor’s Degree in Forestry and his Master’s in Natural Resource Geography from the University of Washington. In college he was awarded the Navy Reserve Officers Training Scholarship. Merritt served 26 years, four in the navy and the rest in the Marine Corps. He served all over the world, including the Philippines, Vietnam, Republic of China and Japan, and in the states in Michigan, California and Virginia.
In 1979 Merritt, his wife and two children moved to Aspen after he retired from military service. Merritt was verified as a ski instructor at Aspen Highlands, where he taught while on military leave in 1971. Later he joined the ski patrol and served as the ski area’s president from 1979-1991. After 35 years of service to Aspen skiing, Merritt retired.
Merritt received the Pitkin County Cares Volunteer Service Community Pride Award in 2014. He was a board member of Huts for Vets, whose goal it is to help vets adjust to civilian life while gaining the tools to enhance mental, physical, spiritual and emotional health. He recently started a program called “Building Homes for Heroes,” that provided a home for a local Marine sergeant injured in Afghanistan.
Charlie and Fonda Paterson
Charles was born in Karl Schanzer in Vienna, Austria. His family fled to Czechoslovakia after Hitler’s annexation of Austria in 1938. In 1939 him and his sister were forced to escape again, first to France and then Australia where the pair were adopted by the Paterson family.
When WWII ended Charles and his sister were reunited with their father in NYC. There Paterson finished high school and began his engineering course work.
In 1949 Paterson headed to Aspen. After his first visit he decided to never leave. Patterson was hired as a bellhop at the Hotel Jerome. While he wasn’t working he built an 8’ X 16’ cabin. This cabin was the start to the Boomerang Lodge. Paterson served two years in the U.S. Army training command at Camp Hale and Fort Carson. By 1956 he’d had three hotel lodging unites to his property.
Paterson lent a hand in many aspects of the Aspen community. He served on the boards of the Aspen Chamber and Visitor’s Bureau, the Rocky Mountain Ski Instructors Association, and the Aspen Music Festival and School. Paterson is also the longest serving citizen volunteer in Aspen history (40 years).
Fonda Dehne
has a long history of social activism. Starting in high school, where she lent a hand with a citizen’s challenge to unenforced state liquor laws. She served two years as a page in the Iowa legislature in Des Moines. She graduated from UI in 1968 and is mother to two girls that she raised in Aspen while helping grow and take charge of the Boomerang.
Fonda served 16 years in several leadership positions with the Aspen Music Festival and School. Fonda was secretary and vice-president of the Aspen Valley Medical Foundation. She has also held every board position at the Aspen Country Day School. She’s been a volunteer at the Aspen Thrift Shop since 1990s.
Additionally, Fonda was given credit for leading the plans for the Aspen and Snowmass parsonages remodeling projects. She also had a hand in the historic 190 church’s 2011 restoration. Her earlier work was volunteering with the Parks Association, and she was a board member for the Aspen Center for Environmental Studies. She is a founding member of Friends of Shadow Mountain, and helped organized a movement to protect the Midland Trail right of way.
Currently 96 Aspen and Snowmass community leaders have been inducted into the Aspen Hall of Fame. If you’d like to attend the celebration of the 30th anniversary of the Aspen Hall of Fame, and the induction of these five marvelous community leaders, visit www.aspenhalloffame.org.
