Wendall “Chummy” Broomhall, skiing legend, dies

“I wasn’t satisfied until I saw if I could still beat these young guys,” Broomhall recalled. “I ended up getting in that race. They only picked one cross-country runner, I was it. Won it by two minutes, as I recall.  Broomhall competed in the 1948 Winter Games in St. Moritz, Switzerland, and in the 1952 Games in Oslo, Norway.  In 1960, the United States was hosting the Winter Olympics, and Broomhall was, by default, the country’s expert

For the 1960 Olympics, Chummy oversaw the design and construction of the McKinney Creek Cross-country Venue and organized and staged all the races. He invented the power tiller for trail grooming. We have many of his artifacts in the museum.

His granddaughter, Reagan Carey summarized Broomhall with the following list:

“Grandpa, Mentor, Competitor, Storyteller, Athlete, Motivator, Teammate, Champion, Soldier, Olympian, Patriarch, Lumberjack, Encourager, Fair (except in cribbage), Lovable, Volunteer, Hard-worker, Leader, Charmer, Trailblazer (literally and figuratively), Family Man . . . THE BEST!”  Rest in Peace Wendall.