While many people credit Adaptive Spirit Board Chair Steve Raymond as the impetus behind the U.S. Paralympic Ski Team’s largest annual fundraiser, Raymond credits Bob Meserve.

Meserve is one of five people who will be inducted into the Colorado Snowsports Hall of Fame in a public ceremony on Saturday at the Vilar Performing Arts Center in Beaver Creek.

Meserve and Raymond were friends in the 1980s, living in Vail and skiing together often. In 1983, Meserve broke his back in a ski accident and was paralyzed. He transitioned to sit skiing, becoming the first sit skier allowed on Vail Mountain.

Meserve went on to join the U.S. Disabled Ski Team, winning Paralympic medals, advising the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee, and serving for decades as winter athlete representative and president of Disabled Sports USA.

But in Vail, one of his most enduring accomplishments is prompting Raymond to form Adaptive Spirit, the largest annual fundraiser for the U.S. Paralympic Ski Team.

The year was 1994, and Raymond received a call from Meserve, who had dire news.

“We were at a point where the team really had no funding,” Meserve said. “I told Steve that if we couldn’t find funding for the team, or figure out a way to raise money for the team, that likely there would not be a team.”

Raymond was working for ESPN at the time and serving as president of the Rocky Mountain Chapter of the Cable and Telecommunications Association for Marketing. His idea was to form an annual event that would ensure athletes like Meserve would have a future in adaptive sports, while also creating a signature networking event for cable industry professionals from across the nation.

“Cable and telecom industry executives from across the Rocky Mountain region gathered in Vail to form business connections and share best practices while raising money for the team,” according to the Colorado Snowsports Hall of Fame. “That first event raised $100,000, effectively saving the team and launching a tradition that would continue for years to come.”

The event gained momentum in 2011, according to the United States Paralympic Committee, when the U.S. Disabled Ski Team became the U.S. Paralympic Ski Team under the direct governance of the United States Olympic Committee.

Adaptive Spirit is now a three-day annual event that includes a ski race in which corporate attendees team up with Paralympians. The event raises more than $1 million annually for the team, accounting for approximately 40% of the U.S. Paralympic Ski Team’s operating budget.

A seven-figure endowment, the Adaptive Spirit Paralympic Fund has also been created and a number of corporations are sponsoring individual adaptive racers.

Raymond was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2019, and Meserve spoke about Adaptive Spirit and his friends in Vail at the time.

“I’ve been very fortunate, because Steve and my whole core group of friends were always there for me after I broke my back,” he said.

Meserve went on to serve as the winter athlete representative and president of Disable Sports USA.

Saturday’s event is scheduled to start at 4 p.m., but there will be a cocktail reception taking place beforehand, starting at 2 p.m.

Other inductees include Olympian Trace Worthington, a freestyle aerials skier with 37 World Cup victories; legendary cross-country coach and mentor Jon Kreamelmeyer; and Olympians Alice Mckennis Duran and Wendy Fisher.

Tickets for general admission start at $75, with all proceeds going to support the Colorado Snowsports Museum, a nonprofit organization, and the State of Colorado’s official snow sports museum. Tickets are on sale now at snowsportsmuseum.org/colorado-snowsports-museum-and-hall-of-fame-announces-class-of-2025/.