Sue and Dick McCostis

Sue, a former fashion model, and Vice President for Ann Klein, was a ski instructor at Jackson Gore, Okemo Mountain. In addition, she was a board member of the Ludlow Teen Center as well as the Court Diversion Board for the area. Through these various positions, she recognized the importance of having activities to support local kids, who often didn’t have the means to receive training in snow sports. As she wrote to a friend in 2004, “The Snow Sports Scholarship was established in this past year because we realized that many of the Black River Valley kids were left out of competitive mountain programs due to the high cost

Securing boots, goggles and other ski related attire for the Teen Center kids; Sue thought that a freestyle ski team should be established. “It’s the hot new sport,” she said.

In 2003, Sue started a fund, providing one scholarship for a local boy to participate in the Okemo weekend alpine racing program. At the time of her death in 2005, she made her husband and a friend promise to keep the scholarship fund going.

Dick was raised in Nashua, NH and graduated from Dartmouth College, the Air Force Academy (?) and the University of Virginia Law School. The majority of his law career was in private practice in New York City, specializing in international corporate law. He was a self described “David amongst the Goliath’s of Gotham City.” He was appointed to the Connecticut State Board of Labor Relations, the Connecticut State Employees’ Review Board, and served as a skilled arbiter for the NASD until his death in 2007.

After giving up his law practice in 1997 he moved to Ludlow, VT with his wife Susan. Living his dream of sailing around the world, they spent the next two years sailing to the Caribbean across the North Atlantic and cruising the islands. Returning to land in 1999, Richard became a substitute teacher in the local public schools and renewed his law practice. He was President and Trustee for the Windsor County Court Diversion Program, Inc, as well as taught law in Tula, Russia and participated in numerous arbitrations.

During the winters Dick worked at Okemo Mountain, first as a Safety Ambassador and then as a ski instructor at Jackson Gore.