Summit Old-Timer: Hank Parker

Dillon resident Hank Parker may have failed Latin in high school had it not been for Ann-Margret Olsson.

"Who?"

"Ann-Margret was her nom de plume," said Parker of his larger than life, silver screen classmate.

"She knew what she wanted to be at any early age," he said. "She was pretty foxy."

Parker was born to Henry and Jane Parker on July 6, 1941, and grew up in the northshore suburbs of Chicago.

His father was a banker, his mother a housewife, and he has a younger sister named Connie, who now lives in San Jose, Calif.

Parker went to New Trier High School, where not only screen legend Ann-Margret attended, but also film stars Charlton Heston, Rock Hudson and Ralph Bellamy.

"It was a pretty stimulating place," said Parker of the school that had a student body of 5,000 pupils. "It had a very strong theater program. It was almost like a small college."

Parker graduated in 1959, then went to Dartmouth in New Hampshire and graduated in 1963 with a liberal arts degree.

While there he tried to play hockey, until his coach, Eddy Jeremiah, asked one day, "Have you ever considered skiing?"

"He had a face like an ax murderer," said Parker of his old coach. "But he was a good guy. I took him up on that (skiing).

"After college I wanted to be a ski bum for a winter," he added.

A family friend named Bud Raymond was familiar with Summit County after a stint at Camp Hale while in the 10th Mountain Division and put a call in to Max Dercum on Parker's behalf.

In the fall of 1963, the Dartmouth graduate took a job at the Ski Tip Ranch as a dishwasher.

"Probably the only job I ever had that I really knew what I was doing," joked Parker.

He said the first thing he saw coming over Loveland Pass was the face of Pallavicini, and thought to himself, "This isn't no New England skiing."

Parker said Max Dercum was trying to teach the American technique of turning and used him as a guinea pig. "Max was working for Head and had a cabin full of skis, all of which were about 6'9". He said, 'If you can turn these, you can turn anything.'

"I was out on the slopes practicing one day, when Andy Russell, a great big guy who was head of patrol, came out and lowered the flag to half-staff. We later found out Kennedy had been assassinated."

Parker spent two winters in Colorado - one working at the Ski Tip Ranch, one working as a chef at the Calico Kitchen in Aspen.

Afterward, he returned to Chicago and worked with Leo Burnett's advertising agency as a creative director, working on ad campaigns from the Marlboro Man to Tony the Tiger.

After making real money and cutting his teeth in the professional arena of advertising, Parker came back to Summit County in 1974 and with Steve Scholl and Lee Surette began a monthly publication called The Summit Guide.

They, along with a small staff, put out the publication for five years until it closed its doors in 1979. "We like to say the publication was successful, but the community was not," said Parker. "Quite frankly, we were too early and we all just ran out of energy."

Parker returned to Chicago "to refill the coffers" and went to work for an advertising firm called Needham, Harper and Steers.

In 1987, he returned to Colorado, where he has kept moderately busy doing whatever freelance jobs "slide under the door," skiing and flyfishing.

Parker never married, saying he met the love of his life when working at the Ski Tip Ranch decades ago, "but she had the good sense to marry someone else."

"We just got back together about seven or eight years ago," said Parker of the love he let slip away in Anneliese Freeman. She now lives in Vail and manages the Gorsuch catalog. They spend time together on both sides of the pass.

Parker enjoys his time now skiing (he's logged 40-plus days this winter), flyfishing and spending time with friends.

"My story isn't very interesting," he said. "But I have known a lot of colorful people up here. It has been fun crossing paths with a lot of them."



If you know someone who would make a good Summit Old-Timer, contact Brad Odekirk at (970) 668-3998, ext. 13650, or bodekirk@summitdaily.com.