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Show Celebrities Race With Style...And Grace? By Craig Han sell Tribune Sports Writer Some competitors skied the course with Olympic style and others. ..well, at least one other... literally crawled across the finish of the second annual Jill St. John-Paul Masson Celebrity Invitational Invi-tational Ski Race here Monday. "Dick Andrews (chief fund raiser for the U.S. Ski Team) asked me to help raise funds for the team. I was never very good at asking people for money so I thought up this idea," Jill St. John said. The race mixes celebrities with U.S. Ski Team members and guests in an effort to raise funds to support American ski racing. Last year the event raised $12,000 for the team. Defending champion team captain cap-tain Ed Ames raced as did singer Barbie Benton, game-show host Tom Kennedy, astronaut Wally Schirra, TV's Pamela Sue Martin (Nancy Drew), actor Andy Prine, comic impressionist Frank Welk-er, Welk-er, skier Billy Kidd, actor Charlie Dierkop, Christy Martin, skier Susie Corrock, actors Mike Dante and Sam Melville. Dante's team (he played the lead in Winter Hawk) won the double-elimination race held on Claim Jumper Run. Issued Challenge But Sam Melville's (he plays officer Danko on Rookies) team issued a challenge after Dante's bunch edged them for the title. The grudge rematch ended in an upset and number two had become a lion. Melville's crew, Susie Patterson of the ski team, Tom Weisel, Julie Kennedy, Robbie McGrath, Tom Barbed and Doc DesRoches, had triumphed tri-umphed over Dante's team. Dante's team included, ski team member Scott Clayton, Beth Carouse, Bob Marsh, Susie McGrath, Chris Hellman and Dick Andrews. Charlie Dierkop, who plays a policeman on the Police Woman TV series, quickly became one of the most popular skiers on the hill. His form could be described as early buckboard but he proved to be a game competitor. He left the starting gate and tettered on the brink of disaster during most of his races. Once he negotiated the whole course only to fall at the last gate. With the competition hot on his heels, he crawled through the finish. The spectators loved it and gave him loud cheers. Good Natured Bantering Salt Lake City Mayor Ted Wilson engaged in some good-natured good-natured bantering with disc jockey Tom Barberi and there was much talk of some one-on-one competition to settle, once and for all, the running feud between the city fathers and the radio personalities. The event, which continues Tuesday with a cross country ski tour and barbeque at 10:30 a.m. brings together the famous and the not-so famous with the U.S. Ski Team as the center of attention. It gives celebrities a chance to participate in an event they wouldn't normally be involved in. "Now I'm getting into things I couldn't do as a child," Jill St. John said. "I started acting when I was four but now my career is taking a backseat to my lifestyle," life-style," the beautiful Aspen, Colo., resident said. "Now I'm just a Colorado girl, enjoying life in the mountains. This is the year for my tennis and my vegetable garden," Jill said. Nancy Drew Between bites of her sandwich, Pamela Sue Martin, the 24-year old star of the popular Nancy Drew TV series, bubbled with enthusiasm for the event. "I'm having a great time here," she said. "I just finished production on the series Friday at 4 a.m. and flew out with Frank (Welker). We came with Sam Melville who is a really good friend of mine. "ABC has a lot of stuff with high ratings this season so I hope we will start production with eight more shows in June but, being up against Disney and 60 Minutes is pretty hard. "I hope they keep it up going because I was just starting to get it down," she said with a grin. |