Sacramento, CA – U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer (D-San Francisco) has sponsored a bill that passed the U.S. Senate unanimously on Wednesday that would name a previously unnamed Sierra Nevada peak for famed skier Andrea Mead Lawrence.
The 12,240-foot summit in Mono County, Calif., near the Tuolumne County border and the Ansel Adams Wilderness, would be named Mt. Andrea Lawrence in honor of the conservationist and skier, to date the only female winner of two Olympic gold medals in alpine skiing, who passed away while living in Mono County in 2009 at the age of 76 after a long bout with cancer.
“Andrea Lawrence was an Olympic champion who dedicated her life to protecting the treasures of the Eastern Sierra. Her passion and achievements were larger than life, which is why I cannot think of a more fitting tribute than to name this majestic peak in her honor,” Boxer said on Wednesday.
Boxer first sponsored the bill in May. It now goes to the U.S. House of Representatives, where it is sponsored by Republican Rep. Howard P. “Buck” McKeon of California, chair of the House Armed Services Committee.
Mead Lawrence was born in Rutland, Vt., where her parents owned nearby Pico Mountain ski area. At age 14 “Andy” Mead was the youngest athlete ever to be chosen for the 1948 U. S. Women’s Olympic Alpine Ski Team (’48, ’52, ’56), and she garnered numerous awards in national and international championships from 1948 – 1952, including the 1948 Austrian National Championships, and the 1950 U. S. National Championships in Sun Valley, Idaho.
Mead Lawrence’s transcendent moment came while winning two gold medals (Slalom and Giant Slalom) at the 1952 Winter Olympics, in a come-from-behind performance Olympic historian Bud Greenspan called, “The greatest attempt at immortality in the Olympic Games.”
Mead-Lawrence is recognized one of the best women skiers in the world, who captivated an entire nation, and was a celebrity in her time. Her story of personal challenge and triumph was enriched by a philosophical world view: mountains are sacred, and skiing is an art. She was an archetype of the pure amateur athlete, competing only for the love of the sport, to “make beautiful runs” through the gates.
Mead Lawrence’s quiet intensity and love of the mountains infused a political career, culminating in the formation of the Andrea Lawrence Institute for Mountains and Rivers in 2003, a non-profit organization that oversees environmental conservation and responsible land use in the Eastern Sierras and Mono Lake region of California. She successfully fought to defeat an eight-story condominium complex at Mammoth Mountain in a protracted court battle.
Mead Lawrence was inducted in the U.S. National Ski Hall of Fame in 1958 and the U.S. Olympic Hall of Fame in 2009.