Profile: Jane Banks

If you’re one of Crested Butte’s active Nordic skiing elders, you’ve probably met Jane Banks at some point out on the CB Nordic’s (CBN) groomed trails. Jane’s been actively involved with the lively Gray Hares ski group and became its coordinator in 2014, having volunteered for years and helped with many CBN events including their after-school kids’ recreation program. 

She was born the youngest of twins in Highland Falls, New York, a town on the Hudson River. Her father helped run the family business as a florist and her mother was a homemaker. Jane says she was a tomboy who was active in various high school clubs but, back then, there were essentially no sports for women in her town and she felt she had been plopped into the wrong timeframe. Her school did have many field trips, and Jane joined the French Club and band, where she played clarinet. Because she lived so close to Manhattan, she was able to take trips there for cultural events like seeing the Rockettes at Radio City Hall, which left an impression on her. Jane graduated high school in 1967. 

While she was in high school, all Jane seemed to want to do was be active and in the outdoors but when it came down to thinking about college and a career, even though she excelled in math, she took a different path. “I really liked math but our senior year math teacher couldn’t teach very well,” she recalls.  She still passed the stringent Regents exams and was awarded a Regents scholarship. She enrolled at State University of New York (SUNY) at Cortland to study physical education because Jane decided she didn’t want to teach math and be indoors all day, “I wanted to be in the great outdoors.” 

Jane met her husband-to-be, Murray, in the college library. “I was asleep and he woke me up,” she smiles. She had gone to the quiet of the library after lunch to take a catnap. The couple married in 1970 and Jane graduated from SUNY in 1971. After graduation, from 1971 through 1974, Jane worked in Groton, New York, about 20 miles from Cortland. “It had a Smith-Corona typewriter plant,” she says of the town’s economy, but she was able to teach a program that she says she would have enjoyed herself as a student. “It was different kinds of activities, intramurals after school and I had so many girls who wanted to participate. Title 9 had just come into play which basically said they had to provide programs to women equal to what the boys had.” She also coached volleyball, softball and basketball. Then in 1974 Jane and Murray had their first son Jeffrey, who was soon followed by Steven in 1976.

Wanting a change of scenery, the family moved to Bethel, Vermont. They had driven through the town during autumn colors and were wowed by its beauty, plus, in 1978, there just happened to be an opening for a physical education position for her husband. Jane liked the small-town vibe of Bethel. “Lovely people and everything was really accessible. The kids could walk to school, there were two grocery stores and the post office was at the bottom of the road.” 

Jane was a homemaker until her youngest, Steve, started school in 1981, then she took a job with Vermont Castings in customer relations. “I learned a lot about stoves and we had three Vermont Castings stoves in our house,” she recalls that it was a very drafty old farm house. “Vermont Castings wanted their workers to be able to understand the stoves so they could help customers. They gave us the stoves, but not the firewood,” she laughs. She worked for them for four years, primarily from the fall to spring because there wasn’t much demand for wood stoves during the summer. However, Jane says she was really surprised to get calls for the stoves from Florida.

In Vermont, Jane and Murray got into running and participated in many road races and marathons. Jane won the women’s division for the Dartmouth Medical Marathon. “Looking back, I realize how important racing was to me, since competing in sports wasn’t available to me in my youth. I am very proud of my many wins in road racing, triathlons and Nordic ski events,” she says actually quite humbly. “In the summer of 1987, by winning my age division in a triathlon in Brattleboro, Vermont, I qualified to race in the World Champion Ironman Triathlon in Hawaii in October. Training required many hours of biking and running the scenic roads of Vermont, swimming in chilly lakes and endless laps in a pool. The result was an age division eighth place finish within a total field of 1,000 competitors.”

They were living in Vermont until 11 years ago when the couple decided to move to Crested Butte, having been introduced to the area during the winter of 1994 when their son Steve attended Western State College, (now Western Colorado University, WCU). Steve lured his older brother Jeff out to CB and both became mountain guides. As they were driving up valley for the first time Jane was awed by the mountains, “They were spectacular!” Back in Vermont, they would Nordic ski, so they visited the Crested Butte Nordic Center here to check out the groomed trails. After about 10 days and new friendships, the couple began visiting every year, staying longer each time and even up to six weeks. Then their granddaughter Winter was born in France, where their son Jeff was guiding at the time. Jane and Murray returned to CB from October to May when Jeff and his family returned and at the end of that stay in 2013, they decided to move to CB.

Her husband was still working as professional speaker, travelling out of town for work, meanwhile, Jane had retired and was enjoying her granddaughter and babysitting. That’s when she became involved with the Gray Hares and became the coordinator and a constant volunteer. In the summers, Murray and Jane returned to Vermont for three months to spend time with their long-time friends there. Jane joined a quilting club. “I always enjoyed sewing. I had started making doll clothes when I was nine years old and graduated to making my own clothes throughout high school and college. I do a lot of mending for my family,” she says and she even used to make lycra ski suits for the Nordic team in Vermont as well as triathlon suits and dance costumes for a performing dance company. “I’d also take in other projects like alterations.”

Those three summer months they still spend in Vermont are on their family’s off-grid multi-generational property that has two cabins on an island in Lake Hortonia, 18 miles south of Middlebury. “No electric, no running water, no central heat, just a fireplace and solar panels. Water is brought in gallon jugs from an outdoor spigot at the town hall. We do have a propane gas stove and refrigerator,” she explains, and they have to haul the empty propane tanks by boat to the other shore where the gas company fills them before hauling them back to the cabins.

 Jane adores her Crested Butte home and smiles, “What’s not to like? The community is fantastic. My husband was diagnosed with prostate cancer in 2013 and he received good treatment here. The community, these wonderful friends here, are so supportive of us both.” They both keep busy and Murray is actually enjoying retirement. “I can’t imagine leaving here, it is just so beautiful. We’re slowing down but we can still downhill and Nordic ski, mountain bike, and hike and our boys still live here. We’re really grateful to be living here and have such loving friends.”