NIC FIORE

No person has taught more skiers in California history. When he arrived in Yosemite Valley from his native Canada, he looked up toward the sheer vertical rock walls of Yosemite Valley, then turned to Luggi Foeger his ski school director and exclaimed, "But Luggi, where do the beginners ski!?"

In his more than 50 years teaching skiing at Yosemite's Badger Pass, over 137,500 people learned to ski from him and the Yosemite Ski School which he directed. He introduced thousands more to skiing through dry-land ski schools held on high school football fields, thus incubating the sport throughout California.

Fiore wrote "So You Want to Ski," was selected by the French government to represent the United States at the French national ski instructor's academy, and subsequently coordinated similar exchanges in the United States to improve American instruction.

Fiore is the only person to have received awards for outstanding contribution to skiing from both the Northern California and Nevada Ski Media Association and the Southern California Association of Ski Writers. He is the only ski instructor ever to be inducted into the California Tourism Hall of Fame.