Legends of Showdown · The Ski Club years, 1936–1956

Stub Gendreau
Chaired the 1956 drive that sold shares in the hill to Great Falls, and taught in its ski school
Legend of Showdown
- Born
- 4 May 1929, Great Falls
- First skied at Showdown
- By March 1947, at seventeen
- First worked here
- January 1946, at sixteen, on the committee for the club's first Ski Week after the war
- Years at Showdown
- Positions
- Ski Week committee and tournament committee, Great Falls Ski Club, 1946, as a Great Falls High student
- The high-school representative for the club's Ski Week, January 1947
- Ski instructor for the club from the winter of 1953-54, and for the YWCA's ski classes, 1955–57
- Chairman, the 1956 stock drive for a lift (Ski Tow Incorporated)
- Director, Ski Lift, Inc., 1956
- In charge of running the new Pomalift, its first winter, 1957
- One of the four who organized the Kings Hill Ski School, winter 1959-60, and an instructor in it to 1963
- President, Great Falls Ski Club, elected April 1960
- Race chairman, the first Kings Hill Invitational, 1961
- Associate instructor, Northern Rocky Mountain Ski Association, certified March 1962
- Wrote the Kings Hill Ski School's Ski Tips column, 1963
What they did
30 entries
- 24 January 1946At sixteen, a junior at Great Falls High, on the committee running the club's Ski Week of 2–9 February 1946, the first after the war
- 5 March 1946On the tournament committee for the club's 24 March races at Kings Hill, under Clarence McCafferty and Roscoe Rowe
- June 1946One of fourteen club members who finished the Red Cross advanced first-aid course that qualified them for the National Ski Patrol
- January 1947The high-school representative for the club's Ski Week of 19–25 January 1947
- 8 March 1947Pictured on the Leader's front page skiing through new snow at Kings Hill with Stan Mowry and Andy Farago, photographed by John Murray of the high-school paper, who hauled his camera out to the run on a sled
- 23 March 1947Entered in the men's downhill of the club's city tournament
- 25 December 1953Home from the Army after duty in Korea, and named one of the club's ski instructors for the winter, under Jack Throckmorton
- 21 March 1954Starter at the club's annual races, run in a heavy snowstorm
- January 1956Taught the YWCA's adult ski class, and was one of the club's instructors that winter
- 9 March 1956At the meeting that agreed to form a corporation for a lift, and named to its pledge committee with Jack Harrison, Harlan Cory, Dan Moran and Jack Trodick
- 29 March 1956In charge of the club's stock drive for a mechanical lift; his letter told members the runs and facilities had proven inadequate that season for the crowds driving to Kings Hill
- Chairman of the stock subscription committee; his name heads the 152 sign-ups for Ski Tow Incorporated, and he bought two shares himself
- 10 June 1956With Jack Harrison on the first Sunday work party clearing timber for the new Poma lift, photographed watching a tree come down
- 3 July 1956On the first board of directors of Ski Lift, Inc., the company that still runs the mountain
- 3 August 1956Pictured with the directors signing the $19,040 contract for the platter lift
- 24 January 1957In charge of running the new Pomalift for its grand opening weekend. 'It runs like a tiger,' he told the Leader
- April 1957The club's evening contact for skiers, so it would know whether to run the lift that Sunday
- Winter 1959-60Organized the Kings Hill Ski School with Ron Hall, Don Walters and Lee Robinson, after the four trained at Bozeman with the Northern Rocky Mountain Ski Association; classes ran every Saturday and Sunday at the club's hill
- 29 April 1960Elected president of the Great Falls Ski Club, succeeding Jerry Peterson
- 3 December 1960One of the five instructors who opened the ski school's season under Ski Lift, Inc.
- January 1961Represented the club at the Forest Service's safety meeting
- 5 March 1961Named to head the first Kings Hill Invitational, 25–26 March 1961, as its race chairman
- 28 January 1962Pictured in the Montana Parade watching his students on the beginners' slope, one of the veteran Kings Hill skiers
- March 1962Passed the Northern Rocky Mountain Ski Association's associate instructor's examination at Red Lodge, with Lee Robinson
- 8 April 1962Chief of course, with Lee Robinson, for the club races
- October 1962An instructor in the club's seven-week junior program
- 3 January 1963One of four instructors, with Lee Robinson, Carl Spinti and Ron Hall, of a seven-week course for about 130 children aged 8 to 16
- 5 December 1963Named, with Carl Spinti, one of the ski school's veteran Kings Hill instructors for the new season
- 6 December 1963Wrote the Kings Hill Ski School's Ski Tips column, with his portrait, in the first issue of the club's newsletter, the Kings Crier
- 15 December 1963Narrated the ski school's demonstration, from the snowplow to parallel skiing, at the grand opening of the T-Bar, before close to a thousand people
In their own words
Photographs
2 in the archive


In the papers
5 documents
- Jack Throckmorton’s scrapbook Club papers, membership records and cuttingsc.1937–1957 · pages 21, 66
- Ski Tow Incorporated Stock subscriptions — the founding list1956 · page 2
- Montana Parade “Skiing In Montana”Sunday, 28 January 1962 · pages 5, 6
- Kings Crier Vol. 1, No. 16 December 1963 · page 7
- Kings Crier Vol. 1, No. 217 January 1964 · pages 1, 3
Still Going Downhill