Junior Bounous

Today would have been Maxine, Junior's wife of 67 years, 100th birthday. Please join us in celebrating her adventurous spirit and beautiful soul.

Maxine was born in Provo, Utah, on September 18, 1925. She fell in love with horses at a young age and saved up babysitting money to buy a retired racing horse. It was while on a horse ride up Rock Canyon that she would meet her future husband, Junior. For their second date, Junior took Maxine up North Fork Canyon to Ray Stewart's cabin at the soon-to-be Timp Haven ski area to teach her how to ski. Since her tiny boots didn't fit in his bindings, Junior took his own boots off so that she could wear them, and taught her how to ski as he walked around the snow in his socks. From that moment, their seven decades together were filled with a shared passion for the mountains and skiing. Maxine became one of the first US Forest Service-certified female ski instructors and would leave her own legacy on the Utah ski industry.

You can read more about Maxine's life and their seven decades of love in Junior's biography: https://www.ayjabounous.com/purchase/p/juniorbounous

On August 24th, Junior Bounous hit an incredible milestone and completed his 100th year around the sun. We are so amazed and proud of his continued accomplishments. He is an icon for so many reasons, and we are so fortunate to live in a world with him in it. Please join us in wishing Junior a Happy 100th Birthday!

We invite you to enjoy this short video we made to help celebrate Junior's century of skiing. It features clips taken from Warren Miller films, Snowbird Ski Resort promotional footage, "Bounousabuse: 80 Junior Years" (a film made about Junior in honor of his 80th birthday—thanks to the Keller and MacLean families and Larsen Jay), Snowbird Ski School's "Don't Fence Me In", sound bits from Utah Legends PBS Special about Junior, and a Warner Archive clip of Roy Rogers:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1yP_w-NI3s1PZpFXhSOfzvnfpIUQXY_fe/view?usp=sharing

Pay attention to what ski outfit Junior is wearing in these clips, because that will help tell you how old he is. If he’s wearing an old red sweater that will be circa late 1940s, and anytime he has a buzzcut hairdo, it was taken between 1940s to early 1960s, when Junior was anywhere between 20 to 40 years old. If he’s in an orange sweater, that was one of the first Snowbird ski school uniforms from the early 1970s, and he’s in his 40s. When he’s in a blue and green sweater that’s from the early 1980s, when he was in his mid-50s. If he’s wearing a full yellow one-piece suit with his yellow helmet, he’s 80 years old. If he’s wearing a red jacket, grey pants, and yellow helmet, that is all footage taken from this past season, when he was 99 years old.

Finally, in honor of his 100th birthday, we have made a "Centennial" hardcover edition of Junior's award-winning biography. At 12"x12", this coffee-table book has even more photos and stories from Junior's remarkable life. We are currently collecting preorders and hope to ship them out in early December. A portion of the book sales will go towards the Junior Bounous Legacy Fund for the Snowbird Sports Education Foundation. If you'd like to preorder the book, you can purchase it at this link:

https://www.ayjabounous.com/purchase/p/junior-bounous-and-the-joys-of-skiing-the-centennial-edition