Jon Farnham grew up in Hanover and first took up ski jumping at age 6 with the Ford Sayre Academy, continuing through his graduation from Hanover High in 1975. He was the Eastern junior national champion in 1974 and ’76, and after a stint in the U.S. Army, he returned to the Upper Valley and coached ski jumping for many years with the Lebanon Outing Club at Storrs Hill Ski Area, where he trained multiple Olympians as well as the Lebanon High team.

Six years after he retired from jumping and coaching, Farnham, 66, is being inducted into the American Ski Jumping Hall of Fame on Saturday in Red Wing, Minn. The Valley News caught up with Farnham, who now lives in Bristol, Vt., to talk about his career and what this honor means to him.

This interview has been lightly condensed and edited for clarity and brevity.

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Valley News: What was the Hanover team like while you were in high school?

Jon Farnham: It was difficult. I skied on the team when I was a freshman, and by then I was already skiing what in those days we called 70-meter hills. I was skiing big hills on the weekends at competitions, and the high school meets were predominantly on 15- and 20-meter hills. It wasn’t good for my technique to ski on really small hills and then try to go ski a big hill a couple days later. So I forwent the rest of my high school career to train with Ford Sayre. We did most of our training on the old 50-meter hill that was on the golf course in Hanover.

VN: What did you do for your day job?

Farnham: I worked at a family-owned business in Lebanon. It was a print shop on Hanover Street. My folks owned it, and I eventually ended up president of the company. The printing business really went downhill so we were lucky enough to sell the company, and it’s no longer in existence now. I could go to work early, and the jumps are right across town, less than a mile away. I could get out of work at 2 p.m. and go over and make sure the hills were in perfect condition for practice, which started at 6.

VN: What were the most gratifying parts of your career, especially in coaching with the Storrs Hill program and the Lebanon High team?

Farnham: Just making it fun and safe for kids, seeing kids accomplish stuff that they didn’t think they could do, watching them progress and getting onto bigger ski jumps. Now you can jump in the summer. They have a great facility in Lake Placid, N.Y., which is only 140 miles from Lebanon. We would spend a dozen weekends in the summer in Lake Placid skiing on those hills.

Of course, it’s really gratifying when a kid gets to go to the highest level. But it’s also really gratifying to see a kid who’s not going to ski at that level to progress and be safe and have a lot of fun with it.

VN: What is it like to watch these guys that you coached when they were little compete on that Olympic stage?

Farnham: It’s just amazing. I always tell them when they start, there’s probably 200 ski jumpers that can ski a 90-meter hill in the United States, so this is their best chance if they’re interested in someday being an Olympian. Your odds are better than any other sport. When one or two of them make it to the highest level, it keeps me from having been a liar. It’s really good for the other kids who are fans of these guys that do really well, to think it’s possible for them, too.

VN: Were you pretty devastated when the Storrs Hill ski jump was demolished last year?

Farnham: Devastated doesn’t even start to describe my feelings. That was one of the most important hills in the state of New Hampshire, being right there at the bottom of Storrs Hill. Alpine skiers would see people jumping and then want to do it. It was a great recruiting tool. They had assured me at the time that they were going to rebuild it, but I’m pretty sure that hasn’t happened yet. It’s a really sad thing.

VN: What does it mean to you to be inducted into the American Ski Jumping Hall of Fame?

Farnham: I was kind of surprised. I never expected it. It’s just an affirmation of my life’s work. My career as a printer provided for us and we were fortunate with that, but what I really did with a majority of my life was thinking about ski jumping and helping expose other people to it.

Benjamin Rosenberg can be reached at brosenberg@vnews.com or 603-727-3302.