SEATTLE – Julie Fiorini, owner of what was once the largest privately owned ski school in the country, has died at age 85.
Thousands of people, including Microsoft Corp. co-founder Bill Gates and several members of the Nordstrom family, have attended the Fiorini Ski School on Snoqualmie Pass since Fiorini and her former husband founded it in 1947.
Known as “Head Mama” on the slopes and “Triple Checker” in the office, Fiorini carefully maintained the school’s records using a manual typewriter.
She retired in 1990, was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease three years ago, and was diagnosed with terminal cancer this summer. She died Sunday at a hospice home on Vashon Island.
Born Aug. 25, 1921, in Wilkes-Barre, Pa., Fiorini was a jazz and big band singer in her hometown, said Georgianne Fiorini, her daughter and successor at the ski school.
She married Sebastian “Buzz” Fiorini in 1943; they met after he saw her perform at a ball for brewery workers. The couple headed west, settling first in Bremerton, then Seattle, where Buzz Fiorini worked in a sporting-goods store and was asked to teach customers’ children to ski.
The business blossomed, and they later established Fiorini Sports, a ski and snowboarding shop. The couple divorced in 1987.
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