NORTH CONWAY, New Hampshire ??” Named to commemorate an early ski-school and ski-shop pioneer, the Carroll Reed Cup will be awarded for the first time at the Hannes Schneider Meister Cup Race, at Cranmore Mountain Resort, March 12. The fastest team made up of ski and snowboard industry professionals will win the prestige of being the first team in history to win the Carroll Reed Cup and will take home a crystal Revere bowl engraved with their names. The Meister Cup Race is part of a weekend of events that honors the founding father of ski instruction, Austrian Skimeister Hannes Schneider, and raises support for the New England Ski Museum.

Carroll Reed, born in West Roxbury MA in 1905, was a co-founder of the venerable White Mountain Ski Runners, which still maintains a club lodge in North Conway. In 1934, bed-ridden after a ski accident at Wildcat, he was inspired by an article on the Hannes Schneider Ski School in St. Anton, Austria, and was encouraged by a friend to bring the concept across the Atlantic.

In his memoirs, Benno Rybizka, one of Hannes Schneider’s top instructors at St. Anton, recalled how Reed’s idea came to be a reality: “One day during the summer of 1936, I received a letter asking me if I would be interested to come to Jackson, NH, to open and direct a Ski School, and what my terms would be. The letter was signed by a Carroll Reed whom I did not know. I went to Hannes Schneider with that letter and we talked things over. I followed his advice concerning terms, and they were accepted.”

The ski school that Reed established in Jackson operated for two seasons under his ownership then was sold by Reed to Harvey Gibson who was assembling elements for a ski resort in North Conway (Mount Cranmore). In 1938 Gibson drafted a contract for Hannes Schneider to assume direct leadership of the North Conway School. By the winter of 1939, Gibson had obtained permission from the German government for Schneider and his family to emigrate to America, where he joined Rybizka and several more of his Austrian instructors. Had Reed not started his American Branch of Schneider’s ski school in 1936, it is unlikely that the Schneider family would have come to North Conway.

In the same summer he was employing Rybizka to come to America, Reed opened a ski shop in Jackson, and persuaded Saks Fifth Avenue to stock it with ski clothing for the winter. When the ski school was sold to Gibson, the shop moved to North Conway. Perhaps the greatest retailing innovation of Reed and his wife Kay was the mail order catalog of ski clothing and equipment they first printed in 1939.

The Carroll Reed Cup will be presented as a special award during the Hannes Schneider Meister Cup Race slated to take place on a course made up of well-spaced gates set on an intermediate slope. Participants may use alpine or telemark skis, a snowboard, or adaptive equipment to race two runs through the course. Total team time will be calculated by adding each team member’s best timed run. In addition to the Meister Cup and new Carroll Reed trophies, a number of special awards will be presented including: the Tenth Mountain Division trophy for the winning veteran or active-duty mountain soldier team, Junior Team awards for teams consisting of five skiers age 13 and under, and commemorative cups for the fastest male and female snowboarder, telemark skier and adaptive skier.

Teams eligible for the Carroll Reed Cup must be comprised of ski and snowboard industry professionals, their families and associates. Registration for a team of five is $375. The registration fee includes a welcome reception with appetizers and entertainment Friday night; an all-day, all-mountain lift ticket on race day; continental breakfast and lunch on race day; a commemorative gift bag; an exclusive 2005 Meister Cup pin; entry to the Awards Ceremony and Apr??s Ski Bratwurst Bash.

To add to the pageantry of the weekend, vintage skiwear is strongly encouraged. Racers and non-racers are invited to don vintage skiwear for the event: woolies from the 1940s, those red, white and blue windshirts and flowered warm-ups from the 1970s, even that neon parka that was so stylish in the late 1980s.

For more information, or to register a team, please call 800-639-4181 or visit [url=http://www.skimuseum.org. For more information about Cranmore Mountain Resort, please call 1-800-SUN N SKI (786-6754) or visit www.cranmore.com]www.skimuseum.org. For more information about Cranmore Mountain Resort, please call 1-800-SUN N SKI (786-6754) or visit [url]www.cranmore.com.