Still Going DownhillLegends of Showdown · The Ski Club years, 1936–1956
George Prentice
Prentice Run, named for him in 1939
Legend of Showdown
- Born
- 29 March 1909, Great Falls
- First skied at Showdown
- Kings Hill by April 1939 in print (class B at the first club championships); from 1934 by his family's account
- First worked here
- Great Falls Ski Club committees, 1939 — the ski-train tickets were sold at his station that February
- Years at Showdown
- 1939–1947
- Positions
- Great Falls Ski Club — arrangements committee, first annual dinner dance, April 1939
- On the club's Montanans, Inc. buffalo-pin committee (Bob Selzer was its chairman)
- Founding member, Great Falls Ski Patrol, c.1940
- National Ski Patrol System — photographed on duty at Kings Hill, January 1947
- Class A racer, Great Falls Ski Club, 1940 and 1941
- Director, Great Falls Ski Club, October 1940
- Co-chairman, temporary ski patrol, December 1946
- President of Winter Sports, Inc. (The Big Mountain), 1947–49; manager of the ski resort at Whitefish, 1950
- Awards
- Prentice Run named for him, December 1939 — "in honor of George Prentice, through whose efforts establishment of the course was realized"
- National Ski Patrol System member on this patrol, attested January 1947
What they did
8 entries
- 9 February 1939Opened a Conoco station with Walt Jensen at Second Avenue North and Third Street; it sold the club's ski-train tickets, and its telephone was the club's reservation line
- 17 March 1940Fifth in the downhill, 1:48.2
- 31 March 1940Entered the class A slalom on the power line run, as one of the ten fastest men in the previous fortnight's downhill
- 1940-41On the Great Falls squad for the Anaconda state ski tryouts
- December 1940Taught the club's beginners' blackboard class at the YMCA
- January 1941Fourth in the Neihart selection downhill
- 16 February 1941Fourth in the class C slalom at the Northern Rocky Mountain tournament, Hellroaring, Whitefish
- 2 March 1947Surveying Hell Roaring with Ed Schenck for a new Whitefish ski corporation; he priced its lift at about $30,000
In their own words
Photographs
1 in the archive
In the papers
3 documents
- Jack Throckmorton’s scrapbook Club papers, membership records and cuttingsc.1937–1957 · pages 8, 19, 37, 55
- Jim Hasterlik’s scrapbook Cover, 8 intro leaves, 43 pagesc.1937–1942 · pages 15, 30, 31, 38, 47
- Montana Parade “Skiing In Montana”Sunday, 28 January 1962 · page 5
Also
- Named for them Prentice Run — named in December 1939. One of only two Kings Hill run names to survive the 1973 rename into print, and Joe Pinski extended it uphill in 1981
- Built the club's portable jeep-mounted rope tow, January 1947 — with Ed Schenck and Art Higgins