Loma Linda to consider honoring mountaineer
She was fondly known as "Grandma Whitney" among fellow mountain climbers.
Hulda Crooks scaled Mount Whitney 23 times - all of them after age 65.
The legendary mountaineer, who died in 1997, lived to be 101.
Crooks, who has a park named after her in the city, is in line for another honor.
The Loma Lindda City Council on Tuesday will discuss awarding a contract to a San Bernardino artist to create a statue of Crooks.
Hulda Crooks scaled Mount Whitney 23 times - all of them after age 65.
The legendary mountaineer, who died in 1997, lived to be 101.
Crooks, who has a park named after her in the city, is in line for another honor.
The Loma Lindda City Council on Tuesday will discuss awarding a contract to a San Bernardino artist to create a statue of Crooks.
The life-size bronze sculpture would be placed on a concrete base near
the entrance to Hulda Crooks Park at the southern terminus of Mountain
View Avenue.
Sculptor Patrick Jewett, who has done public art pieces for Fontana, Colton and Grand Terrace, would be paid $34,350 for the statue.
The money would come out of a fund the city has set aside for art projects.
Jewett said he was approached by Public Works Director Jarb Thaipejr to come up with a design for the sculpture.
"I'm really excited," said Jewett, 41. "When you look at all the great cities in the world, one of the most memorable things about them is their artwork."
Crooks, who was born in Canada in 1896, was a longtime Loma Linda resident. A member of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, she ate a vegetarian diet and got up and went to bed early.
Her exercise routine consisted of 5:30 a.m. jogs and brisk walking.
Hiking and climbing helped her cope with the death of her husband, Samuel Crooks, in 1950, as well as the death of their only son, Wesley, in 1969.
She first climbed 14,505-foot Mount Whitney in 1962 at age 66 and did so every year except one for the next 20 years.
At age 91, she climbed 12,388-foot Mount Fuji -- Japan's highest peak. She ascended Mount Whitney for the last time later in the same year.
In 1990, through an act of Congress, a peak south of Mount Whitney was named Crooks Peak.
Her many hiking companions included Rep. Jerry Lewis, R-Redlands.
"No mountain was ever too high for this gentle giant," Lewis once said of Crooks.
Councilman Robert Ziprick said Crooks touched many lives in Loma Linda.
"She is an icon to the people in this community for her example of remaining vigorously active throughout her life," Ziprick said. "The park is an appropriate setting for a memorial to her example and to her."
Hulda Crooks Park is the main gateway to the vast wilderness area known as the South Hills Preserve.
"The thousands of people who use these hills will have a chance to remember her," Ziprick said.
stephen.wall@inlandnewspapers.com, (909) 386-3916
Sculptor Patrick Jewett, who has done public art pieces for Fontana, Colton and Grand Terrace, would be paid $34,350 for the statue.
The money would come out of a fund the city has set aside for art projects.
Jewett said he was approached by Public Works Director Jarb Thaipejr to come up with a design for the sculpture.
"I'm really excited," said Jewett, 41. "When you look at all the great cities in the world, one of the most memorable things about them is their artwork."
Crooks, who was born in Canada in 1896, was a longtime Loma Linda resident. A member of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, she ate a vegetarian diet and got up and went to bed early.
Her exercise routine consisted of 5:30 a.m. jogs and brisk walking.
Hiking and climbing helped her cope with the death of her husband, Samuel Crooks, in 1950, as well as the death of their only son, Wesley, in 1969.
She first climbed 14,505-foot Mount Whitney in 1962 at age 66 and did so every year except one for the next 20 years.
At age 91, she climbed 12,388-foot Mount Fuji -- Japan's highest peak. She ascended Mount Whitney for the last time later in the same year.
In 1990, through an act of Congress, a peak south of Mount Whitney was named Crooks Peak.
Her many hiking companions included Rep. Jerry Lewis, R-Redlands.
"No mountain was ever too high for this gentle giant," Lewis once said of Crooks.
Councilman Robert Ziprick said Crooks touched many lives in Loma Linda.
"She is an icon to the people in this community for her example of remaining vigorously active throughout her life," Ziprick said. "The park is an appropriate setting for a memorial to her example and to her."
Hulda Crooks Park is the main gateway to the vast wilderness area known as the South Hills Preserve.
"The thousands of people who use these hills will have a chance to remember her," Ziprick said.
stephen.wall@inlandnewspapers.com, (909) 386-3916
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