Annie is the oldest of four siblings, with Eileen; Patrick, known as P.J.; and Caroline behind her. She describes their parents, Joseph and Pauline “Polly” Condron, as athletes, their father being the one who started them skiing at very young ages—mostly “to get us out of the house,” she said.
Annie recalls their family being on a waitlist of about 250 people to join the small, rustic Mount Greylock Ski Club in South Williamstown in the 1960s (the club opened in 1937 and remains open, with P.J. still being involved). Once they were finally admitted to the club, the Condrons would often set off for the day and return home so tired that Polly could barely keep the kids awake for the spaghetti dinner she had prepared.
The Condron kids skied, trained, and raced at Mount Greylock Ski Club under Gerard “Vince” Conway and Jack O’Brien. And off season, they didn’t take much of a break. “Right after Labor Day,” Annie said, “we would hike up and clear the Thunderbolt Trail so we could do dryland training there.”
The hard work particularly paid off in February, 1973, when Annie, a senior in high school, competed in the Berkshire Interscholastic Ski Races, a multidiscipline event that combines alpine skiing, cross country skiing, and jumps. The winner is crowned Skimeister, and it had never been a girl—in fact, it couldn’t be a girl because girls were not allowed to ski jump in the competition.
Annie’s parents at Brodie, 1972
In 1973, however, inclement weather made it too dangerous for the jumping to take place. And no jumps meant that “it was the first year that there was a level playing field for all the male and female competitors,” said Annie.
And she won.
After the competition, “everybody was like, ‘Oh my gosh, it looks like a woman has won this race with the overall points,’” recalled Annie. “It was kind of a panic situation. Nobody knew what to do.”
What they did was create the title “Skimeisterin” for Annie (as in, a feminine form of “Skimeister.”) And though previous years had not seen two people honored, that year did. A young man, Bill Lyon*—who came in second place overall—was dubbed the “Skimeister.”
*Bill Lyon, incidentally, still lives locally and skis often. He runs William Lyon and Son Carpentry (and happens to be the father of Mary Daire and Molly Lyon-Joseph, also featured in this issue).
