From the Ski for Light Bulletin - Summer 2008
Compiled by Judy Dixon and Vicki Post
Raymond (Bud) Keith was born in Washington, DC, November 20, 1939 and died June 14, 2008. He became totally blind at age eleven as a result of a playground accident. His insatiable curiosity, intense interest in the people around him, and an amazing capacity to remember details were all traits that characterized Bud's life and they characterized his involvement with Ski for Light as well.
Bud is the only person to attend every Ski for Light International event, from 1975 in Breckenridge, Colorado, to 2008 in Bend, Oregon. He served as SFL President from 1981 to 1988 and from 1994 to 1996. He never held any other office and never held an event job.
Many of the things we do today at Ski for Light were initiated by Bud's creativity at a time of organizational crisis. In 1987, when trail conditions had deteriorated to the point that holding a ski race was deemed unsafe, Bud came up with the idea of holding a rally instead. When the Board of Directors was suffering from not enough new members, Bud came up with the idea of an "Australian" ballot, ranking every person running for election rather than each person receiving a simple majority.
There were many other facets to Bud's life. Those of us who knew him through Ski for Light would often hear him mention that he had been a Peace Corps volunteer in Panama in the 1960's but did we know that he worked for the next forty years as a leader in the returned Peace Corps Volunteer community? For the past 15 years, Bud has been the president of the Peace Corps Panama Friends, the alumni group for Peace Corps volunteers and staff who served in Panama.
Bud was diagnosed with prostate cancer in 1995. Because it had already metastasized to his bones, surgery was not an option for him. Bud approached the undertaking of being a cancer survivor in the same way that he approached everything else--he gathered all the information he could (fortunately, by then, the Internet had been invented); he contacted the most knowledgeable people; and he got involved. His involvement in his own treatment gave him 13 years of life when his prognosis had been three to six, and with a quality of life that was very high right to the end.
Those of us lucky enough to know the younger Bud knew a man full of energy and tireless capacity for getting the job done. There was no hour of the day or night that Bud wasn't ready to brainstorm about a problem, participate in a conference call, or just lick envelopes if it meant making the Ski for light program better. Ski for Light was a life's passion for Bud and Bud's passion for Ski for Light will live in the organization's essence for many, many years to come.
Bud, we will miss you always.
From Judy Dixon
I don't remember when I met Bud. He was at my first Ski for Light in 1977. When I moved to Washington in 1981, I saw him more often. We had dinner together every month or so and talked on the phone nearly every day. We consulted each other about Ski for Light no matter which one of us was President at the time. Bud was a walking database of local information--whether it was where can I get a railing made for my back porch or where do they have good seafood, Bud always knew. We laughed, we argued, we enjoyed the detail in things.
from Tor Dahl
The death of Bud Keith was a reminder that towering figures in our midst are not immortal, and that we must find ways to survive as seemingly indispensable leaders fall away. Like Bud, I was intensely involved with the start-up of Ski for Light. I was elected by SFL, together with Grethe Winter, to serve as guides to Ridderrennet (I guided Mary Kozy). I was a co-author of that notorious song that somehow has survived a quarter of a century in SFL ("Those were the days my friends...."). Bud, Billie Jean, and Judy Dixon last sang it together with me in Minneapolis at the Ichiban Japanese Steakhouse in July. My last conversation with Bud was about the future of Ski for Light. Bud was one of the superstars of SFL who laid the foundation of what is now a mature organization.
From Linda Mumford
I attended my first SFL event in 1998. I remember thinking at the time that Ski for Light was a strange name because the name gave no clue that it was an organization promoting cross country skiing for disabled persons, and I wondered what it meant. Over the next ten years, I continued to wonder about Ski for Light's name, and finally, on May 23, 2008 I decided to find out by sending an email to Bud Keith and asking him.
The very next day I received the following reply from Bud:
"Linda, The idea behind the name, ski for light, is somewhat complicated. erling [Stordahl] was full of metaphors. Instead of focusing on blindness and the absence of light, he focused on the unknown and enlightenment. So, in looking at the Norwegian culture, he used or created a metaphor. In the legend, a Norwegian knight, the ridder part of ridderrenn, needed to escape some bad guys. He came to an abyss and not having any idea of whether he could safely make it, leaped with faith and succeeded. erling equated this with the human struggle and pushed the need for us to try things where success was doubtful, and discover some previously unknown strength or ability within ourselves that help us succeed. it is the metaphorical struggle from ignorance to enlightenment. so in cross country skiing, blind folks are enabled to ski from the ignorance of not knowing anything about the limits of our abilities to the enlightenment of learning that we can succeed at much more than we had ever imagined.
the first event using an English name was race for light. oral miller and I were the first two blind folks who insinuated ourselves into leadership for the second event. we both insisted that racing and hard training for a race might fit in the Norwegian culture, but it wouldn't fit in our culture for many reasons. we insisted on something more appropriate, so we switched to ski for light, keeping the idea of enlightening oneself regarding possibilities and deemphasizing the racing aspects.
is that too much?"
No Bud, it is not too much, and I wish there could be more. May your memory be a blessing.