{"id":43790,"date":"2021-11-10T19:42:00","date_gmt":"2021-11-10T19:42:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/residents-ask-purgatory-resort-to-honor-longtime-ski-lift-attendant\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T09:15:38","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T09:15:38","slug":"residents-ask-purgatory-resort-to-honor-longtime-ski-lift-attendant","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/residents-ask-purgatory-resort-to-honor-longtime-ski-lift-attendant\/","title":{"rendered":"Residents ask Purgatory Resort to honor longtime ski lift attendant"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Residents
Residents are asking Purgatory Resort to honor longtime lift attendant Barry \u201cCarmine\u201d Kemler, who recently died from cancer. A petition asks Purgatory to rename a run after Kemler. (Courtesy of Russell Amidon)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Saddened by the recent death of Purgatory Resort\u2019s ski lift operator Barry \u201cCarmine\u201d Kemler, residents have banded together to ask the ski area to name a run after him.<\/p>\n

Upon hearing that Kemler recently died of cancer at age 67, resident Jerry Olivier set up a petition online <\/a>to help honor the longtime Purgatory employee.<\/p>\n

The petition had received more than 2,100 signatures as of Wednesday, in just five days of being online, with more than 70 signatories voicing support for a ski run named after Kemler.<\/p>\n

Purgatory Resort has yet to comment about whether it will take note from petitioners and name an existing or future run after Kemler.<\/p>\n

Kemler\u2019s good friend and ski buddy Russell Amidon said he would often visit on days that Kemler was working to say hello and go on a couple of runs while Kemler was on break. Amidon and Kemler have been friends since 1984.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe really is the best friend I\u2019ve ever had in my life,\u201d Amidon said. \u201cA lot of times he was working, so I would catch a chairlift up with him and ski one or two runs before he\u2019d go back to work.\u201d<\/p>\n

Amidon said if Purgatory were to rename a run in Kemler\u2019s honor, one of the blue cruiser runs like Limbo or West Fork would be most fitting.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was a frontside guy, but I would drag him over to the backside now and then because I really like all of those runs over there,\u201d Amidon said.<\/p>\n

Olivier met Kemler in the early 1990s when the two worked together at Purgatory\u2019s restaurant. Olivier said back then Kemler was the food and beverage manager at Purgatory.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe became friends back when he was my boss,\u201d Olivier said. \u201cHe was an awesome guy to be around, and the room just felt better with him in it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Both Olivier and Amidon said Kemler had a knack for giving out nicknames that would stick. When Amidon worked with him at Purgatory in the 1980s, Amidon said Kemler used to call him \u201cUncle Fussy.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cEverything would have to be in its right place for me and done right, and Carmine would say, \u2018Just let it roll off your back like water off a duck,\u2019\u201d Amidon said. \u201cI would look at him and say, \u2018Carmine, I\u2019m not a duck.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Kemler\u2019s easy-going nature is what stood out most to Amidon. Amidon said he was always happy and able to roll with things.<\/p>\n

\u201cThings just didn\u2019t bother him much at all,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Kemler spent most of his life working in the food service industry. He opened restaurants in Albuquerque, and earned his Carmine nickname while working at Ariano\u2019s Italian Restaurant in Durango.<\/p>\n

However, in more recent years, Kemler was more of a jack-of-all-trades, working as a lift operator at Purgatory, a groundskeeper at Dalton Ranch and as a salesman at Star Liquors.<\/p>\n

In a Facebook post, Purgatory Resort said Kemler worked as a lift-ticket checker since 2005. In 2008, he was promoted to ticket supervisor, and retired at Purgatory in 2018.<\/p>\n

Olivier said his children were also sad to hear about Kemler, as he would always remember their names and hand out chocolates at the ski lift.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe knew everyone\u2019s names whether they had a helmet on or not,\u201d Olivier said. \u201cHe would hand out Hershey\u2019s chocolate kisses to your kids and he would remember their names. He was just one of those guys that there\u2019s not a negative word you can say about him.\u201d<\/p>\n

njohnson@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

petition seeking to name run after Barry \u2018Carmine\u2019 Kemler has more than 2,000 signatures<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":43791,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[255,28,712],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-43790","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-death-and-dying","tag-headlines","tag-purgatory"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43790","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43790"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43790\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":85846,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43790\/revisions\/85846"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43791"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43790"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43790"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43790"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=43790"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}