EVOLUTION DEDICATION
TATS SUMIDA
A Survey was sent to the Past Presidents in January. They were asked who they would dedicate the 40th Anniversary ‘Evolution’ to. Without a doubt, Club Founder, Tats Sumida was a favored choice with comments such as “He’s the Man!!!”.
Past President April Shiro shares some history with us.
“Back in the 1950’s, there weren’t a lot of skiers around and Tats Sumida loved to ski. Tats wanted to go skiing and he wanted to get a lot of other people skiing. He started the JACL Ski Club but that didn’t quite work out so he started his own club with some friends. Since most of them were Nisei, they decided to call it the Nisei Ski Club.
They would get together and decide where they wanted to go, Tats would arrange for the bus transportation and tour lead the group. They even made trips to Mount Shasta and Sun Valley by bus and those buses didn’t have restrooms on board! Arrangements had to be made periodically for rest stops.
Gradually, the club grew and grew and Tats Sumida continued to make the arrangements for the ski buses, collect money for the ski trips, send out confirmations, and deal with last minute problems, He had to start recruiting tour leaders because he started a family of his own and it had been decided that Nisei Ski Club members had to be 21 years of age or older. It didn’t matter to Tats. He took his family up skiing but fortunately for the Nisei Ski Club, Tats kept on making the arrangements for the club bus trips up until 1990. Tats was a school teacher in San Francisco so he did have another full time job! He had connections with the Greyhound Bus company.
Tats worked tirelessly for the Nisei Ski Club, I know all the members that knew him think the world of him. Tats Sumida made it easier for us all to go skiing.”
It is with great pleasure that we dedicate ‘Evolution’ to TATS SUMIDA.
Thank you, Tats, for making the Nisei Ski Club for us!
