Connie Nelson served as the Executive Director of the Alf Engen and 2002 Olympic museums at the Utah Olympic Park for 22 years.
Barbara Yamada, chair of the Utah Ski Archives board, said Nelson was selected by the Quinney Foundation to receive this year’s award for her outstanding achievement and contributions to skiing.
“Because of the work she has done to bring people into the museum, the amount of dollars that she was able to raise for consistently upgrading the museum and exhibits and just preserving the history of skiing in in the Intermountain area,” Yamada said. "She was the recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award from the International Ski History Association in 2019."
Yamada said the award was named after the ski visionary and founder of Alta, Joe Quinney, a prominent Salt Lake City attorney who along with others formed the Utah Winter Sports Association and oversaw the development of skiing at Alta starting in1937.
Nelson will join the list of other recipients of the award including philanthropists Spence Eccles and Jim Gaddis, Deer Valley founder Edgar Stern, as well as Director of Skiing Stein Eriksen and long-time COO Bob Wheaton.
The sold-out annual banquet and award ceremony will take place at the University of Utah campus on Wednesday. The archives were started about 35 years ago to preserve skiing and snowsport history. It’s housed at the J. Willard Marriott Library, also at the University of Utah.
The archives document the history of ski competitions on local, national and international levels, the founding of major resorts and much more. The archives are also the repository for the Salt Lake Winter Olympic Games Bid Committee records and the records of the 2002 games themselves.
“A lot of photos from as early as the 1920s ‘30s, from ski jumping with Alf Engen and some of the people here in this area,” Yamada said. "We had Ecker Hill as one of the places where the events were being held for ski jumping. And so, it's quite extensive. It's one of the best in the US.”
Much of the collection she said has been found by children while cleaning out the homes of their deceased parents. The documents are kept in the library; the clothing, skis and other objects are brought to the Alf Engen Museum in Park City.
Yamada said anyone with a stash of ski memorabilia can make an appointment to meet with an archivist.
