Obituary: Sarah Ann Cox Johnston
Johnston family/Courtesy photo
Sarah Johnston, known (it seems by everyone) as Sally, died peacefully in her home in Vail with her family and friends gathered around her. Sally, in addition to being a teacher, a lodgeowner, an entrepreneur, a musician, a public speaker, board member and community leader, was a key figure in the founding generation of Vail.
Sarah was born into a skiing family with three other sisters in Lyons Falls, New York, the daughter of an English teacher and a school principal. She started her career as a music teacher, but turned her focus to work with students with severe emotional disabilities.
In 1963, Sally’s sister, Renie Gorsuch moved to Vail alongside Paul Johnston. Renie opened the iconic Gorsuch’s Ski Store in the clocktower building, and Paul opened a nightclub called the Nu Gnu in the basement of the clocktower with Sally’s best friends, the Hanlons. Sally came out to Colorado to visit her sister and friends, and fell in love with Paul.
They got married, moved to Oklahoma, and had two sons, “Johnny” and “Mikey.” In 1976, Sally cashed out her pension account from her years as a teacher to make the down payment to move back to the mountains and buy the Christiania Lodge, where the Johnston family lived in room 300.
As owners of one of Vail’s oldest family-owned lodges for 46 years, Sally and Paul were very active in civic life. Sally and Paul helped found the Gerald R. Ford Amphitheater and the Shaw Cancer Center, and put Vail on the international map by bringing the World Alpine Ski Championships to Vail for the first time in 1989. Sally continued her passion for education by sitting on the board of the Vail Mountain School and Echo Ranch Center, as well as the Third Way Center in Denver.
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More than that, Sally had a special gift to see the best in others. She could make anyone feel at home anywhere, anytime. Sally was relentlessly optimistic and her ability to love people for who they were at their best brought everyone to her like a magnet. She never said an unkind word about anyone else, and found a way to love people through their brokenness that bound them back together again.
Sally is survived by her two sons John and Mike, her bonus kids, Paul Johnston Jr. and Michelle (Johnston) Maloney, 11 grandkids, seven great grandkids and her two sisters Renie Gorsuch and Judie Conn.
A memorial service will take place at the Vail Interfaith Chapel on Saturday, Aug. 3 at 1 p.m. If you’d like to honor Sally’s legacy, the family asks you to do what Sally did best: serve others.
