On a cold, gray Thursday morning at Woodward Park City, dozens of tiny skiers shuffled through the snow, nervous and excited for their first-ever ski race at Miss Billie’s Kids Kampus “Downhill Classic.”
Parents, grandparents and alumni of Miss Billie’s lined the sidelines with noisemakers and cardboard signs watching their preschoolers make the turns they had spent the past five weeks practicing.
For the 40 preschoolers in Miss Billie’s Kids Kampus ski program, the annual Downhill Classic marked the end of their first ski season. For many of the adults watching, it connected their families to a shared love of the mountains and a tradition that has lasted more than four decades.
“This year we had our biggest group ever,” said Cindy Meneses, owner and director of Miss Billie’s Kids Kampus. “We had 40 of our preschoolers sign up.”
Each week during the program, children ages 3 to 5 board a school bus in Salt Lake City and ride to Woodward Park City for ski lessons. Over five weeks, the kids complete 10 two-hour lessons, finishing the season with the Downhill Classic race while parents watch them show off what they’ve learned.
“These kids are so impressive. Just yesterday, six of them came out of the Start Park and did the carpet for the first time, and they were so proud of themselves,” Cindy said. “I just couldn’t be happier. I was so happy.”
The ski program traces its roots back nearly half a century. Miss Billie’s began in Park City in 1978, when Cindy’s mother, Billie Koleman, opened the preschool out of the bottom floor of her home in the Canyons. As enrollment grew, the school expanded to fill the entire house and operated there for two decades.
Around the same time, Cindy’s father, Ivan “Ike” Koleman, helped launch a small ski program for the children attending the school. He approached Park City Mountain Resort with the idea of introducing young kids to skiing during the school day.
The program operated at Park City Mountain Resort for decades with the help of ski instructor Mary Flinn Ware, who worked at the ski resort for nearly three decades.
When the Kids Kampus moved to Salt Lake City in 1985, the ski program expanded with it.
“It was Ike and Billie’s vision to set up this program for these kids to have this experience and I’m just following in their footsteps. I owe it all to them,” said Cindy.
Three years ago, after changes in resort operations made it harder to continue at Park City Mountain, Cindy said, Miss Billie’s moved its lessons to Woodward Park City, a transition she said provided terrain well suited for young beginners and slightly easier logistics for the Salt Lake bus commute.
Today, Cindy said the school has been bringing children to ski in Park City for roughly 45 years.
“Some of these families have never skied before,” she said. “They still want their kids to have the experience.”
Parents drop their kids at school in the mornings, when teachers and families work together to suit the children up in ski gear. Parents help zip jackets, tighten helmets and wrangle mittens before loading the children onto the bus. The teachers take it from there.
“It’s bedlam,” Cindy said, laughing, “as we all get them ready for skiing.”
Many of the teachers helping on the Kids Kampus bus are alumni of the school and its ski program, Cindy said, bringing their own experience and connection to the program as they guide the youngest skiers through their first lessons.
Several attended Miss Billie’s from nursery through kindergarten, including Lexi Riggs, Chloe Riggs and Jessica Harding, along with Cindy’s daughter, Kellie Michaelis, who now serves as one of the school’s directors. Also on the bus team is teacher Claudia Rios, whose three daughters attended Miss Billie’s and later returned to work at the school alongside her.
Cindy’s husband, Alfredo Meneses, drives the Kids Kampus school bus each week, transporting kids and their skis to the instructors at Woodward, who take the children through lessons tailored to their age groups.
For many parents, the program solves the biggest logistical hurdle to getting young kids on skis.
For Holly Nichols and Andy Hopkins, that structure has made it possible for their children to grow up skiing alongside their friends. Their oldest daughter, now 6, started skiing through Miss Billie’s and has already spent four seasons on snow.
“When we found out they had this ski program, we were just so excited,” she said. “You mean they learn to ski from real instructors? And we don’t have to schlep our own kids up to the mountain and deal with all their gear?”
Hopkins said the children now have a built-in network of friends they ski with outside of school, and the parents have built their own friendships around their kids’ friendships and a shared love of skiing.
“It’s giving them the fire in the belly,” Hopkins said. “Before the ski season they’re asking all fall, ‘When’s it gonna snow?’”
Hopkins said the program also exposes kids to a ski environment they might not otherwise see. At Woodward, beginners share the hill with experienced freestyle athletes, and the culture can rub off in surprising ways.
“They’re around serious professional athletes here,” Hopkins said. “Our daughter is 6 now and she skis switch with her friends — full laps backward. It’s wild.”
For Daniel Bourque, seeing his daughter race at the Downhill Classic was the first time he witnessed how much she had progressed since her first day on skis.
Bourque is an avid skier himself and had taken her out before the program started just to introduce her to the feeling of being on skis. On that first outing, he said, he spent most of the time skiing backward in front of her, nearly holding her up to help her stay balanced.
He cheered with the families on the sidelines as she confidently linked quick turns down the hill, grinning at her instructors as she skied to the finish.
“I’m just so impressed,” Bourque said. “Watching her come down making turns — she’s totally ripping it. It’s wild.”
The encouragement from instructors and teachers has made a big difference, Bourque said. Early in the season, Bourque said teachers sat with his daughter on the bus to help calm her nerves before lessons and give her a pep talk, and her Woodward coach quickly became “her best bud” on the mountain.
By the final week of the program, she was counting down the days to the race.
“These last few weeks especially she’s been super stoked. She’s just been talking about it since her last lesson on Tuesday, and she’s so fired up to race,” said Bourque.
Dolly Gorham stood along the race course cheering for her youngest grandchild — the third grandchild in her family to come through Miss Billie’s.
“My son was 3 when he learned,” Gorham said. “I just love skiing, so it’s so fun to see the kiddos getting to do it just like he did, and now they can do it together.”
Watching so many children enjoying the sport at once never gets old, she said.
“These kids are so happy,” Gorham said. “It is so special when you see that many kids having fun and listening to their instructors and their teachers.”
Paul Riggs also came out to support the next generation of skiers. His own children attended Miss Billie’s years ago, but celebrating his niece and nephew and remaining a part of the Miss Billie’s family brought him back to this year’s Downhill Classic in support of the community that helped raise his family.
Riggs himself attended the school during its early years in Salt Lake City. His mother taught there. His wife later worked there while their children were enrolled, and his sister, Cory Lunt, still works there today as one of the school’s directors.
“It’s a family,” Riggs said.
Four generations of the Koleman family are still connected to the school. Along with Cindy’s daughter, Michaelis, other members of the family continue to help run their programs, with her granddaughter working there, too.
Alfredo said their goal has always been to share the opportunities he and Cindy had growing up, particularly the chance to discover sports and outdoor activities early in life.
Watching children push beyond their comfort zones on skis is one of the most rewarding parts of the job, he said. Just as meaningful is seeing families gather together to celebrate those small breakthroughs.
“They’re 3 and 4 years old, and they’re really getting out of their comfort zone and being brave on their skis,” he said.
Seeing families gather to celebrate that growth, he said, is what keeps the program going.
“For us as parents and for these families to see their kids learn and grow and be happy doing it — what more can you ask for?” he said.