If Sam Bush is King of Telluride and Telluride Tom is the Mayor of Town Park, then Scott Spencer was the Godfather of the Front of the Line. With a radiant smile, boisterous laugh and laid-back demeanor, he orchestrated a diehard group of Festivarians committed to front row real estate by turning chaos into camaraderie. Scott died in an avalanche while backcountry skiing in the Matterhorn area near Lizard Head Pass on March 3. He was 53. Scott’s family moved to Telluride in 1979, where his father, Peter Spencer, became mayor, ran a newspaper and wrote a popular, witty column in the Norwood Post. Peter and his teen-age son became part of the Road Warriors, a group that parked cars in the valley floor during Bluegrass and other festivals (a practice that ended in the early 2000s). In 1991, Scott began working in the hotel industry, first at the Ice House, then at the Camel’s Garden and finally at Telluride Ski Company. For nearly three decades, he worked closely with Planet Bluegrass to secure lodging for the musicians. Scott was on a first name basis with regulars like Sam, Béla, Tim, Emmylou and the members of Yonder Mountain String Band, forging friendships that stretched far beyond the box canyon of the San Miguel River. The love of his life, Sara Silton, moved to town in 1993 and they wed in ’99. Scott and Sara had two sons, Peter and Jack, who followed their parents to skiing, hiking and music adventures far and wide. Somewhere around 1999, a twentysomething couple from Durango threw their chairs and sleeping bags down in the front of the line next to the guy with the biggest laugh. That couple was my wife, Shelly, and me. We’d spend the next two decades next to the Spencers in line, enjoying cold, rainy nights almost as much as we enjoyed the
music inside. We each had two families—our kin and our extended Bluegrass family that grew each year. Scott assigned our roles: line sitters, sleepers and runners. He took great pride in running each morning, and our tarps were placed with precision each day for 20 years. Scott groomed my buddy Erin Hyder to run for him on mornings he had to work. A former collegiate soccer star and longtime high altitude runner, she has taken the baton from Scott. In the mid 2000s, the Front of the Line Gang turned an Edgar Meyer, Béla Fleck and Mike Marshall set into a festive Sunday brunch. I baked a couple of pheasant pot pies in the Camel’s Garden, Beth Warren brought a poached salmon, and Scott and Sara dipped dozens of giant strawberries in chocolate. This grew into an annual potluck where people brought their best dishes to the front row tarps. Anything was fair game. One year, I made a smoked pheasant gumbo while Scott had a hundred pounds of oysters flown in from the gulf that we battered and fried for Po’ Boys on-site at a food both. We eulogized Scott at least four times this winter—in a twilight torch ski down the mountain, at a party at The Peaks, in a private family ceremony, and again at Alta’s closing weekend. The final memorial takes place Sunday morning on the tarp. We’ll have gumbo and chocolate-covered strawberries to share.
Chris Aaland is attending his 23rd consecutive Telluride Bluegrass this year. He’s a DJ and the Development Director for KSUT Public Radio and a columnist for the Durango Telegraph.
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Try your hand at pickin’ in the campgrounds.
TAKE A PHOTO: of your jam