We all should be pleased with the excellent start to the 2010-11 Summit County skiing and snowboarding season.

It was a great fall – then bam!

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The celebration of Norma Sundin’s life is slated for Sunday, Nov. 21, 1-3 p.m., in the Copper Mountain Metropolitan District community room.

Norma passed away unexpectedly a few months back of a stroke following a trip to Norway with her father, Hjalmar. They sailed the west coast from Bergen to Kirkenes aboard the Richard With, one of the ships in the Hurtigruten fleet.

She and her father had climbed all 54 of Colorado’s Fourteeners.

Norma was the admin assistant at the metro district for many years. Shame.

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In other Copper Mountain Resort staffing news, Suzy Randolph has retired as the “unofficial” president of resort after serving 33 years as assistant to Chuck Lewis, Andy Daly, Harry Mosgrove, David Barry, and Gary Rodgers.

Suzy was honored at a recent party attended by many of her fellow workers and friends.

She now gets to join husband Scott, formerly the fire chief, in well-deserved retirement.

Among those joining the party were Harry, David, Gary, Bill DeForrest, Penny Lewis, Marcia Spenst, Tom and Diane Malmgren, Chris Colman, Dave Arnesen, Jim Ryan, O’Lynda Fette, Kim and Todd Casey, Tom Hogeman, Karen Rooney Uhlaender (yes, Katie’s mom), Norma and Ron Petrenas, Noni Love, Cyndi and Jim Wilson, Jeff Ogren, Lizzie Jones, Megan McGee, Gary Wilkinson, Kim Siebenaller, Hagan Lyle, Kristin

Kopplin, Larry and Pat Schmidt, Chris Martell, Peter Siegel, and Steve Weidenbacher.

Suzy’s replacement? It’s Heidi Himes.

Congrats.

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We’ve heard from former Summiteer Fred Collins, an avid bicyclist and boater who headed several banks here in the ’80s up until a few years ago.

Fred, now living in Georgia, was with the Summit County Bank, Dillon’s Snow Bank, Evergreen’s Bergen Park National, and later the Community First Bank in Breckenridge.

Getting out of the bank biz last June, Fred is now a partner in a small construction company. And he owns a 1996 40-foot Hatteras, named 5th Girl, which is a twin diesel motoryacht, with his cousin.

“We have had some great cruises to the Bahamas, Key West, Miami and Carolina Outer Banks. We purchased the boat in Boston and brought it down to Georgia,” he reports. “Our pattern is to go on one long cruise every spring and then several shorter ones through the season.”

“I still do a lot of bike riding and work out at the gym almost every day. I love to ride and a fair size group has evolved here. I have ridden BRAG (Bike Ride Across Georgia) three times and do a couple of Century rides every year. My main riding partner is 72. He inspires me. Cycling is just part of my life,” he writes.

“I do feel blessed to be close to great family, great friends, and a great place live and enjoy, ” he says. “Two or three more years and I will retire and be a full time boat bum.”

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Frisco-Littleton lawyer Jim Bull and wife Connie enjoyed a river cruise in France recently as part of an University of Colorado alumni trip.

Here is a sampling of Jaime Toro’s report:

“We embarked at Avignon, south to Arles with all its Roman stuff, then back to Avignon, where seven French popes ran their popedoms in the 14th century; then north to Vienne, another old Roman place; Macon, where we went to the Cluny Abbey at Cluny, which was ripped down in the French Revolution for the stone. It was a few meters shorter than St. Peter’s in Rome – so it was huge and revolutionaries killed a bunch of the abbots with the guillotine, stole all their jewels, money and vineyards, got drunk then hired Napoleon to take them back to restore them to greatness.

“We got out of France on Oct. 12 by the skin of our teeth because they started rioting over the pension thing and most of the flights were canceled,” Jim reports.

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Congrats to Cindy and Wayne Spaulding, who recently marked 25 years of marriage.

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Miles F. Porter IV, nicknamed “Spike,” a Coloradan since 1949, is an Army veteran, former Climax miner, graduate of Adams State College, and a local since 1982. An award-winning investigative reporter, he and wife Mary E. Staby owned newspapers here for 20 years.

Email your social info to milesfporteriv@aol.com.