Durango to honor speed skiing record holder Ross Anderson Sunday

Ross Anderson once raced into the record books at 154.6 mph, and Durango is putting his name back in the spotlight with a hometown celebration at Rotary Park. Mayor Gilda Yazzie will issue an official proclamation Sunday declaring April 19, 2026, as Ross Anderson Day, a nod to the skier who grew up on local snow and took Southwest Colorado into the national extreme-sports conversation.

The day will start at 9:45 a.m. at Rotary Park, with opening remarks from Juanita Anderson. Southern Ute Indian Tribe dancers are scheduled to perform at 10 a.m., followed by remarks from Yazzie at 10:45 a.m. and a raffle at 11 a.m. The city says the proclamation will be finalized during the April 21 City Council meeting, but the public salute to Anderson will unfold Sunday in the open air, where Durango tends to celebrate its athletes best.

Anderson’s story is rooted in the same mountain culture that still draws families to Purgatory Resort. Born May 8, 1971, at Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico, he moved to Durango as a young child and was on skis by age 3 at Purgatory, where his father worked ski patrol. By age 6, he was racing gates. That early start, on a mountain with 1,600 acres of skiable terrain, 107 trails, 11 lifts and a 2,029-foot vertical drop, helped turn a Durango kid into a ski racer, ski jumper and, eventually, one of the fastest speed skiers in American history.

Anderson discovered speed skiing in 1994, won bronze at the 2005 World Championships and became an eight-time national champion. In 2006 at Les Arcs, France, he set the U.S. speed skiing record at 154.06 mph, a mark that has been described in published accounts as 154.6 mph. His honors have continued to stack up, including induction into the U.S. Ski & Snowboard Hall of Fame in 2024 and the National Native American Hall of Fame in 2025. One account says he was the first Native American to receive the U.S. Ski and Snowboard Hall of Fame honor.

For Durango, the recognition carries more than a single record. Anderson is a member of the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes and of Mescalero Apache and Choctaw descent, and he has pushed for Indigenous representation in skiing while helping introduce Native youth to the sport. He now lives in Albuquerque, but Sunday’s celebration will bring his arc home, linking Purgatory’s slopes, the city’s ski culture and a local Native athlete who helped put Durango on the map far beyond the Southwest.