Beverly Kurtz

Beverly Kurtz
born oct 13, 1931

Most people who move to Cody come here because they fall in love with the town's natural beauty.

But it was a man who Beverly Kurtz fell in love with when she arrived in 1955. She met and married Don Kurtz, who is still her husband.

"It was not easy," she said of adjusting to life in Cody after moving from St. Paul, Minn. "It was brown, like it is, and I came from green, so that was difficult."

Kurtz said she also missed the anonymity of city life, and adjusted slowly to a small town where everyone knew each other.

She only meant to teach high school in Cody for one year during her college days, but Kurtz "found the right man" and ended up teaching physical education here for a decade.

"When I came, not all the streets were paved. It was really still a very small town," she said.

"Cowboy and oil man were the two cultures at the time, and those were the years of the bar fights," she said. "It was difficult being a woman at that time."

Teaching has changed since the 1960s, Kurtz said, adding that she didn't think her strict approach to discipline and high expectations of students would be well received by today's kids or parents.

Not that it was always welcomed 50 years ago.

"I asked things of the girls at school that met with great opposition from parents, like bring sweatsuits for physical education in cold weather," she said.

She heard from many irate mothers who thought it was inappropriate for young women to wear anything but dresses or skirts.

"Girls didn't even wear slacks to school then. It was really a different time," Kurtz said.

She also learned that fitting in with friends and neighbors in a small town took time and patience. Newcomers must participate in civic life before recommending changes, advice that still holds true today, Kurtz said.

"It's very easy to alienate people if you aren't careful," she said.

Cody is still a great place to live, but many people aren't sensitive to how they fit into their neighborhoods, she said.

"I'd like to see more of a sense of place, where people think more about their neighbors and neighborhoods," she said.

Through the Shoshone Alpine Club, Kurtz and her husband were instrumental in establishing the ski patrol in 1956 at Sleeping Giant, as well as a ski school there and in Red Lodge, then called Grizzly Peak Ski area.

"It was kind of just a group of young people that were going up there at the time, so skiing was just something we all did," she said.

Kurtz still skies downhill and cross-country, and though she hasn't skied at Sleeping Giant in years, she is anxious to see the hill reopen.

Though she never thought of herself as athletic, Kurtz was a skier and swimmer from an early age, and helping others learn to do both has always been important to her.

"I love teaching, so skiing has always been just another thing to teach," she said.