John Stickney came to CRMS through an East Coast ski connection. His parents knew the Sayre family back East, and when Ford ‘54 and Rob Sayre ‘58 told him “you better come out here, this is a great place,” he did. It turned out their mother, Peggy Sayre, had been his very first ski instructor — at Stowe, in 1942, when John was four years old.

Born in England and adopted into a Quaker family, John became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 1951. His family moved often — Massachusetts, Illinois, Kansas, New York, back to Illinois — before he arrived at CRMS, graduating in 1957. After graduating, he was part of the school’s earliest hands-on building projects, pouring the first concrete in the Barn alongside Ben Holden ‘57, Nick Pratt ‘57, and Harry Pratt, Nick’s father.

He attended Swarthmore before transferring to Colorado College, earning his B.A. in geology there in 1962. As a result of a car accident, John would not have been drafted, but felt an obligation to his adopted country. He chose to do Alternative Service in Mexico with the American Friends Service Committee. After Mexico he came back to the west working at schools in Wyoming and Colorado. In 1970 he returned to Mexico for two years where he directed rural community development work. His final project was with the Indigenous Otomi Indians in the state of Hildago.

John then taught at Bighorn School in Wyoming and then Colorado Academy, where he coached soccer, taught Spanish and math. Since he had youthful experience canoeing, he was asked to run a kayak program at Colorado Academy with the help from Roger Paris. It included learning to build boats, coaching, organizing, and attending and organizing races. He came back to CRMS for two summers in 1968 and 1969 to help run the school’s kayaking program, with a young Will Perry as his assistant. It was through that program that Will met his future wife, Judy Fox-Perry, then a summer student — a connection John is fond of pointing out.

John returned to the Roaring Fork Valley in the fall of 1972 and worked as an electrician and an appliance repairman, owning his own business for many years. He has been involved with many local non-profits, including the Carbondale Arts Council, the Carbondale Mountain Fair, and the Crystal Valley Environmental Protection Association, which former CRMS faculty member Paula Mechau helped found. John was a founding member of the KDNK radio station in Carbondale and has been involved with the Carbondale Mountain Fair for decades.

John served as a CRMS alumni board member from 1968 to 1971 and has remained closely connected to the school ever since — as a Class Representative, a longtime attendee of Alumni Weekend, and, for many years now, the one leading graduates down to the Graduation Lawn each spring. He and his wife, Lee Beck, are members of CRMS’s legacy giving society, the Holden Circle.