70-летняя волонтерка Сью Коста нашла в джаз-фестивале в Джексон-Хоул новый смысл жизни

Grand Teton Music Festival volunteer usher Sue Costa before a performance on August 14 at Jackson Hole High School. Costa has been an usher for GTMF since 2021. Features and entertainment editor Whitney Royster has lived here for 30 years. She has a master's degree in journalism from UC Berkeley. When she is not working, she seems to be busy untangling insurance issues for her family. Or sleeping. Everything Sue Costa does exudes energy. She whisks from one activity to another with ease. She is talkative and eager and enthusiastic about whatever she does. Even her email address includes a “swim-bike-run” nod to a triathlete’s lifestyle. Costa, 70, splits her time between Jackson and Kona, Hawaii. (She learned quickly she didn’t like the cold.) Jackson arrived on her radar after spending time here skiing with her then-husband in the 1980s and ‘90s. Coming from Michigan winters, the duo liked to ski, and their daughter moved to Jackson eight years ago. “Oh, now I have a great reason to come back to Jackson Hole,” she said she remembered thinking. And now that she has grandchildren, the reason is solidified. Her first forays into the community included working at the garden center formerly known as Twigs, now Graze Garden and Home. She watered plants at 5 a.m. She dog sat and bounced from home to home caring for dogs, (“People love their dogs here,”) and experiencing different parts of the valley. “All the while that I was in Jackson, I was volunteering,” she said. Gigs at the Good Samaritan Mission, Our Lady of the Mountains Catholic Church, Hole Food Rescue and Grand Teton Music Festival introduced her to people and activities in the area. “I try different activities so I meet different people,” she said earlier this month while working one of her volunteer shifts for the Grand Teton Music Festival. “In my hiking group, I met someone who likes to swing dance, so I tried that. I feel like Jackson has become home.” Costa wanted to retire to a mountain town (in summer, remember — not cold) after spending most of her adult life in Midland, Michigan. There, she worked as a research manager for the Dow Chemical Company. Her graduate degree is in analytical chemistry. “I did some food chemistry analysis in my early years and my favorite study was measuring the degradation of aspartame sweetener in brownies,” she said. “Every day I got fresh brownies to extract and analyze. After testing we tasted! Some of them tasted terrible and some of them were pretty good.” Her work included field trials at the Dead Sea in Israel, meetings in Moscow where she met the Minister of Agriculture, and trips to Germany to discuss fertilizer enhancements. Now in Jackson, she hikes, bikes, cooks, kayaks and looks for interesting volunteer opportunities. Recently, she completed a week at a Dubois ranch where one day she put together a gas grill, and the other days she cleaned out a labyrinth that was full of weeds. Costa discovered the position at Ring Lake Ranch via an online search for a volunteer job in the mountains in a retreat-like setting. She was surprised it was conveniently located in Dubois. Two years ago Costa hiked the Camino de Santiago in Spain, and intends to go back to the Portuguese Camino soon. Regarding the Grand Teton Music Festival, she liked the idea of volunteering to experience live symphony performances and to meet more local people. That experience has led her to learn more about classical music. Watching the world-class performances has more than enhanced her appreciation of the genre. “The exposure to live music has been life changing for me,” she said. “The passion of the musicians permeates my whole being when I’m at the concerts. I can hardly wait for the next season to begin” Features and entertainment editor Whitney Royster has lived here for 30 years. She has a master's degree in journalism from UC Berkeley. When she is not working, she seems to be busy untangling insurance issues for her family. Or sleeping.