The Copper Mountain Resort Over the Hill Gang senior ski program is teaming with the Team Summit sports club to benefit local youth athletes in honor of the late Paul Kresge.

Kresge, a leader of the Over the Hill Gang and a pillar in the Copper Mountain Resort skiing and Dillon Reservoir sailing communities, died last summer in a sailing accident on the Dillon Reservoir.

Bradley Rosenberg, an Over the Hill Gang board member, said Kresge was a fearless leader and a good friend who he met during one of Rosenberg’s first trips with the Over the Hill Gang.

“We on the (Over the Hill Gang) board kind of had an idea that we’d like to do a tribute to Paul,” Rosenberg said. “We bounced around a lot of ideas in conjunction with Copper Mountain, and they were very supportive. He was important at Copper. He’d been there a long time and he was a key driver behind the success of the Over the Hill Gang.”

Rosenberg said the Over the Hill Gang board eventually decided on providing a scholarship fund for local Team Summit athletes. Rosenberg said the board decided on the scholarship fund with Team Summit because Kresge loved to give back, whether that be coaching up skiers on the slopes in his gifted, diplomatic style or running a kids program for youth sailors on the Dillon Reservoir.

“What we liked about Team Summit is they are focused on kids in Summit County who need help,” Rosenberg said. “The entire focus of the Paul Kresge Memorial Fund and scholarship program within Team Summit is to create opportunities for kids who don’t have them, due to economic and other circumstances. We want to help them have experiences that wouldn’t otherwise be available to them.”

The Paul Kresge fund will help Team Summit to increase their scholarships for local children. Team Summit spokesperson Phil Kubiske said that will mean Team Summit will be able to provide scholarships above the previous maximum of 50% of cost, potentially up to 75%.

“Each year we try to help out our families in Summit County and this is going to be big part of that,” said Team Summit Director of Development Rodney Robinson.

Rosenberg said along with Over the Hill Gang members contributing to the Kresge Team Summit scholarship fund, members will also help in other ways, including helping Team Summit with volunteering for events and helping with transportation.

“It’s not always just money, sometimes it’s time,” Rosenberg said. “And we have a lot of skilled people, bright people, successful people who can step in and help.”

The fund will receive donations from the first-ever Paul Kresge Memorial Bike Ride circumnavigating the Dillon Reservoir at 7:30 a.m., on Sunday, July 11. Those interested in walking are invited to take part in the event as well — as are those who do not do the full loop of the lake — since there are route options for bikers, walkers and athletes of various abilities. The event will start and end at the Marina Park Pavilion.

Rosenberg said it’s expected the Kresge bike ride will be the biggest Over the Hill Gang turnout since before the novel coronavirus pandemic began.

“He was a tribute to Frisco and Dillon,” Rosenberg said of Kresge. “I’ve yet to meet somebody who knew Paul who didn’t have the utmost respect for him. He was a skier, bike rider, sailor and successful businessman and I think he would be incredibly pleased and proud of what everybody — Team Summit, (Over the Hill Gang) and Copper Mountain — is doing.”