На 90-м году жизни ушла из жизни легендарная лыжница и путешественница Барбара Андерсон

Barbara Stewart Anderson Barbara Stewart Anderson, 90, passed away peacefully on August 8, 2026. She was born on March 3, 1936, in Salt Lake City, Utah, to Raymond Stewart and Ava Beckstrand. Barbara was the oldest of four. Her father put her on skis at age two and later built the Provo Canyon Ski Hill, Timp Haven, which would become Sundance. She raced, taught, and skied for the rest of her life. Barbara was an adventurous, energetic, and endlessly curious woman who believed in making the most of every day. Her personal motto, “Why not? I can do it today; I may not be able to do it tomorrow,” became a philosophy that guided her remarkable life. Barbara loved learning, teaching, skiing, hiking, traveling, and, most of all, sharing adventures with the people she loved. She earned a degree in Elementary Education and a master’s degree in Library Science from Brigham Young University and spent nearly four decades as a teacher, librarian, university educator, and administrator, touching the lives of countless students along the way. After retiring in 1997, Barbara’s adventures only continued. She traveled to all seven continents, trekked seven times in Nepal, climbed the Great Wall of China, hiked and skied throughout the world, and at age 76, summited Mount Kilimanjaro. Barbara was BYU’s Snow Queen in 1957, attended the opening and closing ceremonies of the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Olympics, and collected more than 700 miniature skiers from around the world, a collection that was donated to the Alf Engen Ski Museum at Utah Olympic Park. She also devoted herself to preserving her family’s history through extensive genealogy, scrapbooking, and writing. Her book Why Not… was her own account of an adventurous life, written with the hope that it would encourage others to be more outgoing, adventurous, and willing to make changes that would enrich their everyday lives. She showed everyone around her that life was meant to be experienced, that there was always something new to learn or somewhere new to explore. She will be deeply missed and lovingly remembered. She was preceded in death by her husband, Dale; her former husband, Howard; her son, Rory; and her parents. She is survived by her children, Rudy and Jonna; her granddaughters, Nicole and Jessica; and Dale’s eight children–Laurie, Tad, Karen, Tammy, Robyn, Kristin, Toni, and Gary–and their families, who became her own. Services A viewing will be held on Tuesday, August 18, from 9:30-10:30 a.m. at the LDS Church in The Avenues (589 E. 18th Ave, Salt Lake City). Graveside services and burial will follow from 11:00 a.m.-12:00 p.m. at Salt Lake City Cemetery (200 N Street East, Salt Lake City). Celebration of Life will be held on Saturday, October 17th, time and location TBD.