Stowe's Ruschp dies at 61

Stowe’s Ruschp dies at 61{mosimage}Peter Ruschp, former U.S. Ski Team racer and longtime director of the ski school at Vermont’s Stowe Mountain Resort, died Tuesday, Aug. 31, of cancer. He was 61.

Ruschp, son of U.S. National Ski Hall of Fame member Sepp Ruschp (1978), Stowe’s general manager for nearly four decades, was on the U.S. Ski Team in the mid-Sixties before attending Middlebury College and later graduating from the University of Colorado. He was an instructor for five years at Australia’s Perisher Valley (1968-72) and was head coach for the Mount Mansfield Ski Club for four seasons in the early seventies before becoming head of the area’s ski school in 1975. He retired in 1995 and had been director of skiing since then.

Ruschp is survived by his widow, Carolyn, a son and a daughter. Private funeral services were scheduled and a celebration of life was scheduled for Saturday, Sept. 2 at 1 p.m. at the resort’s Gondola Midway Lodge. Memorial donations may be made to the American Cancer Society’s Hope Lodge, 211 East Avenue, Burlington, VT 05401, or the Mountain Mansfield Ski Club Educational Foundation, 403 Spruce Peak, Stowe, VT 05672.