David was seven years old when I first met him when I joined the patrol, and his father Peter was patrolling. When David joined the patrol he was a wicked fast skier who would go down and jump off of virtually anything and everything. It was either 1997 or 1998 and the Ski Patrol Games were being revived and Diamond Peak was hosting the games. Similar to Squaw and Heavenly, we sent two teams. The big difference was we had David, and we kicked ass. David won the Giant Slalom, and our teams won every category as you'll see in the group photo. Two side notes: Yes that is Ann Mortensen in a red jacket, she was deputized for the day because we needed a woman on each team, and the two young boys in the group photo are Rye Jr (now 20 years old) and Jordan Waite (who is 17 I think). The most classic photo was that of the Squaw team looking at the results and being over heard grumbling about how this could have happened!!! I think we skipped a season and Diamond Peak hosted the games again. They published some rules ahead of time and David was reading them intently to the Alpine teams in the parking lot. Always reading the fine print and looking for any advantage. My son still talks about those games when David started stuffing towels, sweaters, anything he could into his jacket and ski pants for padding so he could slam through the gates. Unfortunately I don't have a photo of that, but think of David in a very weird looking muscle suit or fat suit. Melissa was now in David's life as well. The classic story for this day, and the one I've told many times, was when it came to the GS race. Squaw felt they had their best skier on course and he needed to beat David's time. David was the guy to beat from the prior games. They were very excited and it looked good, and sure enough their teammate was a fraction of a second faster then David. I heard David speaking Czech over a walkie talkie and in a few moments Tommy was coming down the course and he was on the ragged edge and looking FAST. David had briefed Tommy about the course and snow conditions and now he was flying. One of my friends on the Squaw team while looking up the hill with his mouth hanging open asked me, "who's that?" I still savor being able to tell him, "oh that's Tommy, David's younger brother, he's faster then David". And yes, Tommy won the GS that day, and once again Alpine teams swept all the events Once again I think there was a gap of a season or two and the next patrol games was hosted by Heavenly. David and Tom were all fired up to get two teams again with the goal to once again make it a clean sweep. While David won the GS and won a funky leather hat, which upon opening David didn't know what was in the bag, the best story of that day was when David was running the GS with an empty sled. About halfway down the course somehow one of his skies popped off and we all groaned, and then in amazement started cheering as David barely missed a beat and kept going on one ski. He didn't win, but his time was faster then about half of all the participants. Truly an amazing performance. Once again between our two teams, we swept all the events except one which was the GS with the empty sled. Squaw won that one. Side note to that day, Tommy was driving up that morning and got in an accident. He pulled the fender out so it wouldn't rub on the tire and I think there was other issues, but he kept on coming and made it to the first race minutes before his first run. No warm up or practice runs. When it comes to racing, the Palecek's are a competitive bunch. :-) I've posted some other random photos I have of David over the years at refreshers and a patrol dinner. Rye