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Show Propping in football paradise Former warehouse converted to gallery for Bay Area artists. P a Park City resident Taylor Meehan playing in California. p B C The PARK Ptft'SS JN BALI* LMKt" CIT Sundance volunteers deemed vital hristmas in the Park will be held at Miners Hospital, 1354 Park Ave. in Park Cily, today, from C 5-7 p.m. Santa will come down Main Street at 5:15 p.m. followed by the lighting of the community Christmas tree at 5:30 p.m. For more information, call 615-5419. "ark Record. I ^^T^^k WWW VISITOR GUIDE Nester Gallery opens in Park City V ^ H ^ ^ ^ Serving Summit County since 1880 H 500 VOL. 125 • NO. 87 Wed/Thurs/Fri t December 8-10, 2004 Skiers help with uphill battle Festival typically drafts more than 1,200 people to help By MATT JAMES Of the Record staff "We usually place more than 1,200 volunteers at the film festival," said Sherry Mason, who oversees the small army of volunteers for the Sundance Institute. "'And the volunteers," she said, "arc what drive the film festival." According to Mason, volunteers are vital to the Sundance Film Festival's success. They help operate the theaters, greet people at events, sell merchandise, count ballots when people vote for films, facilitate discussions, help tell people where to go and do just about everything else that needs done to make the film festival go. "We're a non-profit organization." pointed out Mason. "We have a very small staff that works year round." The year-round, full-time staff at the institute totals only about 30 people. Seasonally, the institute hires an additional 70 or so people. But even a staff of 100 can't approach the man-power needed to run one of the biggest film festivals in the country. . That's what the volunteers are for. - The film festival's volunteer squad is fairly evenly split between full-time and part-time workers. Full-time positions commit to a pre-assigned schedule of 8-10 hours a day for the majority of the film festival. Typically, said Mason, the fulltime positions fill up the quickest, with the institute receiving more applications than it has positions. Those positions are often filled by people from out of town who are called and interviewed over the phone by the Sundance Institute. Most full-lime volunteers receive free lodging, and all get a free uniform (this year from Kenneth Cole) including a jacket, a photo credential for access to parties and screenings and the ability to bring guests to some events. Just as important as full-lime volunteers and slightly harder to recruit are the festival's parttime volunteers. While some of those are visitors to Utah and the Park City area, many are locals. "We love to recruit locals," said Mason, "especially Park City locals." The institute looks for volunteers from Ogden and Salt Lake City as well, to help staff events at those locations and in Park City. Part-time volunteers work from four to six hours a day, four to six days of the festival. They receive a uniform and one ticket voucher for fcvery four hours of work. ; - "We always have spots open," Mason noted about the part-time positions. There is no deadline for part-time volunteer applications, she said, and if for some reason an applicant is not accepted, his or her name will be put in the institute's database and receive the first shot at volunteering for the film festival next year. Aside from the swag. Mason noted a number of benefits to volunteering at the Sundance Film Festival. "You meet people from all over the world," she said. "It's a blast." "There's an energy about the festival," she continued. "If you like entertainment of any kind, it's a blast." Mason was a former film festival volunteer herself. She parlayed her experience there into a year-round, paying job for the Sundance Institute. 'The best way to go about it is to volunteer," said Mason about getting a job at the institute. The volunteer positions also offer excellent chances to make connections and network within the entertainment industry, so they are valuable opportunities for aspiring filmmakers or anyone interested in getting into show business. "That's usually what most of our volunteers are," said Mason. Producer and director Steven Soderbergh - the Please see Sundance, A-2 3 SECTIONS • 58 PAGES Agendas Automotive Business Classifieds Columns Crossword Editorial Education Events Calendar Letters to the Editor A-8 C-16 B-9 C-11 A-16 C-4 A-17 A-9 C-2 A-17 Legals C-14 Movies Professional Services Restaurant Guide Scene Sports TV Listings Weather C-4 B-12 C-7 C~1 B-1 C-10 B-2 ™eParikRecoixL Serving Summit County since 1880 www.parkrecord.com 94937 00001 GRAYSON WEST/PARK RECORD Park City Mountain Resort h ;ld i Benefit Day for (he Park City Education Foundation on Friday, Dec. 3. Money from more than 3,500 lift tickets that day raised iSO.fHX) for Park City schools. "We want to thank the ioail community (or the; tremendous support we received from them," said Peter Curtis, president and general manager of Park City Mountain Resort. The PCEF has the goal of making the district one of the top 10 in the nation by strengthening the following areas with its donations: teacher and staff development; school programs and grants; teacher, student, and volunteer recognition; and facilities and improvements. "We are elated that so many people from the local community, as well as large numbers from the Salt Lake Valley, turned out to support another successful Benefit Day," said Rob Karz, PCEF board member. "We would like to express a sincere thank you to Park City Mountain Resort for their generous donation and support." Left: Benefit Day participant Morgan Gowen, a student at McPolin Elementary, sports an original helmet decoration. Moonwalken enthusiasm in space program needed Buzz Aldrin says Americans must be energized about space Bv By JAY HAMBURGER and the nation will gradually fall behind," he said. Aldrin said he is now spending lots of time working with the private sector in an effort to eventually launch regular people into orbit and design spaceships that could eventually be used in return missions to the moon. Such a mission requires a change in strategy at NASA, which Aldrin notes has focused on Earth orbiters, such as the space shuttles and space station, since the 1970s instead of further exploration of the moon. He sees America eventually embarking on a mis- sion much more ambitious than the moon landings a trip to Mars. He said more rovers are needed on the Red Planet to chart possible landing spots and to collect samples of the Martian surface. More practical goals for the space program are returning the fleet of shuttles to flight in the aftermath of the Columbia disaster and finishing the International Space Station, perhaps by 2010, he said. "Mars is the most habitable planet other than the Earth that we know of and I think we know quite a Of the Record staff Buzz Aldrin these days seems much more interested in talking about the future of space travel than its past, a past that Aldrin helped shape as one of the original Apollo astronauts and the second Please see Moonwalker, A-2 human to set foot on the moon. And the future of the space program, he says, depends on the enthusiasm of everyday Americans, especially the younger generation. Aldrin, who is 74 years old, is now an ambassador for space exploration, saying he wants Americans again interested and the way to spur those feelings is to introduce them to what the space program offers. "We need to increase the enthusiasm for this exploration. That leads science. And we do that by getting people interested in things. Space camp, zero-gravity rides and now sub-orbital flights to be followed by commercial passenger rides into Earth orbit," Aldrin said in an interview with The Park Record last weekend. Aldrin visited Park City to participate in the Merrill Lynch Celebrity Ski Classic races at Deer Valley Resort, an annual gathering that launches the resort's season. Aldrin joined actors and athletes competing in the challenge. Aldrin, though, stands out among the group of celebrities given the minuscule fraternity of moonwalkers to which he belongs. Aldrin followed fellow Apollo 11 astronaut Neil Armstrong to the lunar surface on July 20, 1969, marking what many see as man's greatest technological triumph. He does not want America to falter or let other countries take the lead in technology and space exploration as kids in this country choose instead to listen to music. GRAYSON WEST/PARK RECORD "If they're looking for satisfaction at the moment, then they can get their MP3 players, plug Buzz Aldrin, the second person to set foot on the moon, predicts America will launch a Mars misit into their ears and walk up and down the streets sion someday but he said such a launch is well into the future. Park City skier nails a top-15 World Cup finish ^ekA I icmfv/ a rrtrtlsia lanrlc amrtner Ted among I C U Ligety, UCLCLYf a O rookie, l U U K J C . lands IdllUb d inUriC; the elite in Beaver Creek race By PAUL ROBBINS Special to the Record BEAVER CREEK, Colo. - "I wanted to come down," Park City's Ted Ligety was saying with an easy smilef "and slay the second run..." Slay? A World Cup skier using "slay" - and using it in its proper context? Slay?... But there Ligety, the World Cup rookie, was Sunday afternoon, chatting with gold-medal ease as he described for a cluster of U.S. journalists how a e rst he's nnailed hiss ^first ^e's '' d h' World Cup top-15 result in slalom on the final Prey slalnm nn fhft final days rlavs of of the the VISA VISA Birds Rirrk of nfPrev races. Austrian Benni Raich held oft' teammate and defending World Cup slalom champion Rainer Schoenfelder, the first-run leader, to win the last race in Beaver Creek with a time of one minute, 51.06 seconds. Italy's Giorgio Rocca was second (1:51.27) and Schoenfelder ("I made too many mistakes, but to start the season with a podium is good") in third. Ligety, the lone Yank among either racers to make the second run, tied for 15th in 1:52.75. World Cup leader Bode Miller went out for the second race in 24 hours, Park City's Erik Schlopy struggled, too too, fell in the first run and the others struugled, although College althnnoh Paul Pan! McDonald, MrnnnnlH a n Dartmouth Dartmouth CnWooo skier who qualified to race in a NorAm two weeks earlier, tore out of 70th place and missed the top30 cut by just five-hundredths of a second. U.S. Head Coach Phil McNichol and SL/GS Head Coach Mike Morin could only shake their heads and note, "Missed opportunities..." For Ligety, it was a huge breakthrough. He took the silver medal in slalom at the World Junior Championships last February and then picked off his first World Cup points, finishing 23rd in Kranjska Gora, Slovenia. But Sunday's performance was big and bigger. Please see Ligety, A-2 |