Identity area
Type of entity
Person
Authorized form of name
Grey, Al
Parallel form(s) of name
Standardized form(s) of name according to other rules
Other form(s) of name
Identifiers for corporate bodies
Description area
Dates of existence
1954 - December 20, 2000
History
Alan "Al Presidente" Grey was a Pemberton Secondary School teacher, outdoor enthusiast, and former president of WORCA and PORCA. He was born in 1954 and grew up in Victoria, BC. He demonstrated his athleticism at an early age as a soccer and rugby player, as well as a skier. He was a fitness trainer for the ski club in Victoria, and took up mountain biking fairly early in the sports history. He moved to Whistler when he was in his early 20s. Grey was a ski and snowboard instructor in Whistler for 14 years, during which time he served as a president of the Whistler Off-Road Cycling Association (WORCA) from 1994 to 1999. During his tenure there, he helped grow the membership from a few hundred cyclists to more than 1,000 members. He later moved to Pemberton, where he became a high school teacher and also served as president of the Pemberton Off-Road Cycling Association (PORCA). After battling colitis, an inflammatory disease that attacks the colon and large intestine, for almost two years, Grey was forced to leave Pemberton and stay with his parents on Salt Spring Island. He kept up with his students’ school work until his condition got worse. He went into the UBC Hospital in December of 2000 to have his large intestine removed. He appeared to recover until a blood clot got into his spleen. He was in the hospital for three months, during which time doctor’s removed his spleen. In 2013, he went to the hospital for an operation to connect his colon and intestine, and was "doing very well," according to his father, Doug Grey. In 2104, Grey was ski touring in the Cayoosh Valley with longtime friend Kevin Zucht, when he was felled without warning by a blood clot which triggered a cardiac arrest. Zucht, a ski patroller, paramedic, and member of the Pemberton Search and Rescue Team, performed CPR for a full hour. When it became clear that there was nothing more he could do, Zucht skied almost 14 kilometres out to the highway and contacted the RCMP. Rather than leave Grey’s body out all night, Zucht and another Pemberton SAR member were dropped off at the site by helicopter, and skied Grey by sled out to the highway through the night. Al Grey died on December 20, 2000 at age 46 after a two-year battle with colitis. After his death, the Al Grey Scholarship Fund was established in his memory to help students pay for an outdoor recreation program that Grey was working on for Pemberton Secondary School. There is also a bridge over Wedge Creek on the Comfortably Numb mountain biking trail which bears a plaque in his name, at a part of trail called "Al Presidenté Crossing".
Places
Victoria, BC
Whistler
Pemberton
Legal status
Functions, occupations and activities
Teacher
Ski and snowboard instructor
Mountain biking
Mandates/sources of authority
Internal structures/genealogy
General context
Relationships area
Access points area
Subject access points
Place access points
Occupations
Control area
Authority record identifier
Institution identifier
Rules and/or conventions used
RAD, July 2008 version. Canadian Council of Archives.
Status
Level of detail
Dates of creation, revision and deletion
Catalogued July 2022.
Language(s)
Script(s)
Sources
1) Archival material
2) https://www.piquenewsmagazine.com/whistler-news/community-marks-the-passing-of-a-local-hero-2461078
3) https://www.piquenewsmagazine.com/local-sports/remembering-al-presidenteacute-2465170
4) http://www.leelau.net/2006/numb280506/numb280506.htm
5) https://www.piquenewsmagazine.com/whistler-news/bike-clubs-to-honour-al-grey-2461148
6) https://impressive.net/people/gerald/2007/07/01/14-55-01-sm.html