Friends ski 80k of vertical feet at Beaver Creek to raise money for families of Michigan State University shooting victims
Jay Horton, Jay Kirksey and Eric Reinhard have been closer friends ever since they met at Michigan State University 45 years ago
Jay Kirksey/Courtesy photo
A trio of Spartan alumns — Eric Reinhard, Jay Kirksey and Jay Horton — skied 81,000 vertical feet at Beaver Creek April 3 to raise money for families of the victims of the 2023 Michigan State University campus shootings as well as the Eagle Valley Community Foundation, a board Reinhard sits on. Last year, the Vail-area locals skied 70k at Vail to raise money for the same two groups.
“We’re all alumns so that was the easy, common thread,” Reinhard said. “And I think it was just the timing.”
On Feb. 13, 2023, three students were killed and five more injured when a 43-year-old gunman entered two buildings on the East Lansing campus. At the time, Horton, Kirksey and Reinhard were trying to chart out a 70k attempt. Instead of simply notching an arbitrary athletic feat, Kirksey said they all felt compelled to “give something back to the school that had been so good to us.”
“It just made perfect sense,” he continued. “We got to do something.”
“We are passionate about the university and unfortunately there are a lot of students that still need support,” Reinhard added.
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One of the injured students, Nate Statly, had bullet fragments scattered throughout his brain. With his right ear and eye sutured closed, Statly remained unable to talk, walk, consume whole foods, or use his left arm or leg in the months after the shooting. His family sought funds over and above the $305,000 which were raised on a GoFundMe page shortly after the shooting to help with rehab and modifications to their home.
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And so, on April 3, the Lambda Chi Alpha fraternity friends of 45 years caught the first chair at 8:30 a.m. up the Centennial Lift and proceeded to ski Spruce Face to Red Tail and/or Harrier 36 times. They never went inside, eating protein bars and drinking Gatorade on the lift. When they hit 60k, they exchanged their G2 for a celebratory Foster’s lager. Reinhard and Kirksey’s wives were the support crew.
“They were both pretty sore the next day as well,” Reinhard said, adding that the two women likely skied over 40,000 feet as well. “You can’t have a great day like that without a great support crew.”
After 36 laps on Birds of Prey, they returned to Centennial for one more top-to-bottom run, finishing at their goal with 30 minutes to spare.
“We could have gone for more, but frankly we were beat,” said Reinhard.
“You don’t have to be a great skier but you have to have some tenacity because getting on that chairlift 37 times in a row takes a little bit of drive,” added Kirksey, who admitted to being the bunch’s analytical realist. He’d timed his runs and the Beaver Creek lifts alone prior to the big day, building a spreadsheet to dial in the team’s necessary averages.
“I’ve always been the guy who needs to do the feasibility study,” he joked. “A quarter of the time on the chairlift was spent doing the math, trying to figure out if we’re going to make it or not.”
All three grew up in Michigan and met early in their undergraduate years at MSU. “We grew up skiers in the Midwest so we all had a passion and interest to someday live in Colorado,” Reinhard said. “Which we ultimately did.”
Today, Kirksey lives in Wolcott, Reinhard in Edwards and Horton in Evergreen. Kirksey and Reinhard — both retired — try to ski together a few times each week.
“We’re kind of Vail and Vendetta’s for lunch kind-of guys every Friday,” Reinhard said. Kirksey reached over 2 million vertical feet and finished the year with 100 days on snow. He said skiing has always played a central role in the three friends’ 45-year relationship.
“We’ve always stayed together and never had periods of more than a week or two where we haven’t connected, talked or gone skiing,” Kirksey said. “The vertical challenge was an easy way to pass the day when you have friends like that.”
When Reinhard proposed the 80k goal for this year, Kirksey said he knew it would be a challenge.
“We should take vertical away every year as opposed to adding it on,” he chuckled.
At the end of the 81k day, the two Jays carved their final turns and looked at Eric. Then Kirksey exclaimed, “Don’t you dare raise the number.”
