With the cool evenings and warm mornings, it’s that time of year again to start thinking about skiing.  In the spirit of jump starting the season, we have another great evening planned for the annual Winona Ski Club banquet and silent auction.  We also are very excited to have a very interesting and special guest speaker this year – Frankie Andreu.  Frankie comes to our event via a local connection with one of our own ski athletes we helped develop – Gregg Brandt.  Gregg is working his way up the professional bicycle ranks and currently rides for the Kenda pro cycling team which Frankie coaches.  As you can see below from Frankie’s bio, he reached the pinnacle of the cycling community and shall have many interesting and insightful stories to share about his experiences and challenges.  He has admitted he’s not a great skier but we can all admit we may not be great cyclists but it’s likely something we enjoy to do during the summer and be fans of when the Tour de France is on during July.  Should be a great night and we look forward to his stories and experiences.

We are offering a banquet, silent and live auction again this year on November 10^th.  This evening is the primary fundraiser for the local ski community and ski trails at St. Mary’s.  The attached flyer provides an overview of all the programs this fundraiser helps support and we are really excited this year to show and share the new Brother Jerome Nordic Ski Center on the St. Mary’s campus.  We all owe a great gratitude to Brother Jerome for making the trails we ski on each winter and we’ll honor his passion and desire for the trails with this new center.  The Brother Jerome Nordic Center will now be a warm place to start and finish your skis this winter at the trails.  The evening will start at 6:00pm and be at the St. Mary’s Toner Hall.  Here is the link to web site that you can register for the evening (http://winonanordic.com/).  We are always looking for items to donate during the auction and if you items you wish to donate contact Tom Brandt at tbrandt@hbci.com.  If you are unable to make the evening this year, you can also select to make a donation via the web site.

Frankie Andreu is one of the most popular and well-respected names in American professional cycling. He retired from racing at the end of 2000 after a 12-year professional career. During his racing career he competed in the Tour de France nine times.

Frankie's Tours went from 1992-2000 and during that time there were only five winners. Miguel Indurain, Bjarne Riis, Jan Ullrich, Marco Pantani, and Lance Armstrong.

He was one of the team's most selfless performers and most depended on workers. In addition, he competed in three Tours of Spain and one Giro d' Italia. His racing experience not only encompassed Grand Tours, but also included high placed finishes in World Cup events, World Championships, Spring Classics, and two Olympic Games: 1988 placing 8th and 1996 placing fourth in Atlanta.

Frankie is also a gifted writer and his Tour de France commentaries have been published on many different websites. Frankie’s face can be seen on the Versus Network every July during coverage of the Tour de France.