Lakeside News senior reporter and Stetson University graduate (1974) Pam Keene recently spent six days in Innsbruck, Austria. Along with about 30 Stetson University alumni and staff, she wasn’t there as a tourist, but as part of a group there for a mix of reasons: to learn more about the Stetson Innsbruck Summer Program and its students, to visit Grassmayr Bell Foundry and to permanently honor a trio of young students, who back in 1979, saw their lives cut short on the Alpine slopes.
View toward Innsbruck and the river from the top of the ski slopes.
A charming, very walkable town with beautiful landmarks, good restaurants, incredible scenery against the backdrop of the lower Alps, Innsbruck has a special relationship with Stetson University that goes back more than five decades. I traveled there with a group of Stetson alumni, administration and staff to commemorate and memorialize that relationship.
As the home of Stetson’s Summer Innsbruck Program, it draws between 45 and 60 students for advanced courses taught by full-time professors from Stetson and other experts. Students there for four weeks choose two of eight course offerings that focus on leadership, entrepreneurship, finance and business. It’s an intense learning experience, an immersive one, that also allows free time to explore nearby destinations in Europe.
Getting to know the city
Iconic view of pastel buildings across the Inn River.
Having never been to Innsbruck, I shaped my expectations around photos and other people’s descriptions. What I found there far exceeded my imaginings. A college friend was supposed to travel with me, but an unexpected storm in Atlanta delayed her flight; she missed our connection, so I was on my own.
That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but typically I like to travel with someone else to talk about our days, to share meals and be my steadfast conspirator for trips for gelato and happy hour experiences.
My recently renovated hotel, Hotel Grauer Bar (the Gray Bear), was located next door to part of the University of Innsbruck. The university’s school of music and theater, just outside my balcony, provided morning serenades by the luscious voices of mezzo sopranos and baritones practicing their vocalizations.
Less than three blocks from the town center and Old Town Innsbruck finding my way around was a breeze. Several group meals and activities were planned for us, but there was ample time to explore on my own.
My feet kept taking me to the city’s most famous street – Maria Theresien Street. Now a pedestrian plaza lined with pastel buildings, former palaces built during the Baroque period more than 700 years ago, it’s the most popular place to people watch, enjoy a fresh gelato (Tomaselli’s), view the street artists and sip a local Grüner Veltliner – my favorite Austrian wine – or taste a regional beer.
Austrian white wine, Italian flatbread for lunch.
Like Vienna, the Austrian capital, Innsbruck practically oozes with music. Music students are encouraged to practice performing and practice their skills, so it’s not unusual to follow the music and find an impromptu concert by a string duo, woodwind and string trio, a quartet playing jazz version of a classic from the Romance period, or a quintet surrounded by people dancing, moved by the music. Made me smile.
Another afternoon, an orchestra was rehearsing for an evening concert in the courtyard of the Imperial Palace. Visitors were welcomed to watch and listen.
Along the promenade, retail clothing stores, souvenir shops, cafes, jewelry store windows lined with watches, sparkling necklaces and rings, designer handbags and name-brand high-end fashion.
Founded in 1895 in Watten, Austria, Swarovski jewelry glitters in shops. The headquarters, Swarovski World, is a mere 30-minute ride by taxi or you can take the Swarovski Kristallwelten shuttle that leaves from Innsbruck five times a day for timed tours of the campus and its marvels. Not being a jewelry wearer, I spent my time meandering through Old Town, making photos and visiting museums.
A walk down to the river at the base of the mountains revealed a row of pastel-colored multi-story buildings, a stunning sight that reminded me of Burano, the “lace” island near Venice. It was breathtaking. Lunch at the Market Halle in a French wine-vendors’ shop that made incredible flatbread pizza gave me the excuse to have a glass of my Grüner Veltliner. The shopkeeper scolded me for not having a French wine. She frowned even more when I said “gracias” instead of “merci.” I never said I was multi-lingual!
Innsbruck is most known for its excellent winter sports, including skiing. The town hosted the Winter Olympics in 1964 and 1976. I didn’t visit the Olympic Stadium and slopes. I had more important things on my mind toward the end of the week.
The real reason for the trip
Forty-five years ago, during Stetson’s Winter Term business trip abroad in 1979, the group of about two dozen students, professors and chaperones had a multi-day stop in Innsbruck. Since the early 1970s, Stetson students had the opportunity to visit Europe during the 5-week break between fall and spring semesters.
When I was at Stetson in the early ’70s, the university offered many opportunities to travel abroad, either for a single academic year or as part of what we called “mini-mester,” a 5-week flexible learning experience. We could choose our subjects – I chose astronomy/physics – and several of my friends opted for the Business School trip to Europe.
Fast-forward to 1979. The trip, with 40 students, spent several days in Innsbruck. After an overnight snowfall in town and more on the mountains above, about a dozen students ascended to the slopes of the 6,300-foot-high Seegrube Mountain on Monday, January 15.
The slope on the left is where the avalanche took place.
The slopes had been closed because of the night’s snowfall and the possibility of avalanches, but within a few hours, officials decided to open a lower beginner’s area.
Students headed up and started to ski, then everything got deathly quiet.
Within seconds a wall of snow crashed from up and behind the lower slope, burying many of the students, some submerged and completely covered by the snow.
Rescuers sprung into action including a snow-plow driver who was on the mountain that day, trained medics, local residents in the restaurant on the mountain and stunned students who were spared.
The bells of Innsbruck began to ring non-stop, signaling an accident on the mountain. Townspeople, rescuers, medical personnel and locals anyone else to come and help. Helicopters were called in.
All were rescued, except three Stetson students – Scotty Fenlon, Dennis Long, Katy Resnik; no one else lost their lives that day. The accident made global headlines. Back home in DeLand, a campus and a community mourned.
As with many tragedies, events can be quickly forgotten except by family, close friends and those affected.
Mrs. Grassmayr (L), shares memories with two survivors of the 1979 avalanche.
That’s not happening with Stetson University.
In 2023, some of the students who were on that trip in 1979, along with alumni, administration, staff and the community returned to the mountain to remember those three students. Last summer, about 65 people returned to the mountain to declare that these students, the people of Innsbruck who rescued them and comforted the survivors would not be forgotten.
From that trip in 2023, “Remembering Innsbruck,” a movement was born – the Soul of Stetson.
This summer in mid-July, survivors of the tragedy – now adults, but still remembering – along with other alumni, leadership, administration and current students once again climbed that ski slope to install a plaque of remembrance for the lives of Scotty, Dennis and Katy. The university has crafted a documentary about the tragedy, its aftermath and the Soul of Stetson. (See link below.)
There’s more.
In memory of Scotty, Katy and Dennis, this bell will become part of a carillon in Stetson’s rebuilt Hulley Tower.
For almost 70 years, an 11-bell carillon of bronze bells had rung across the historic Stetson campus and into the town of DeLand from Hulley Tower. Originally built in 1934 as a gift from Stetson’s second president, the tower holds a mausoleum in its base where Lincoln Hulley and wife Eloise are both interred.
Due to the ravages of multiple hurricanes in 2004 and 2005, the tower was deemed unstable. It was dismantled in 2005.
Now Hulley Tower will be reconstructed, funded by alumni who remember Scotty, Dennis and Katy and those who recall the sound of the bells pealing out across campus from 1934 until 2005. When finished Hulley Tower’s belfry will contain 52 carillon bells, cast at the Grassmayr Bell Foundry in Innsbruck.
We travelers were invited to witness the casting of three bells at Grassmayr Foundry, bells that will once again ring from the belfry of Hulley Tower, bells that will help make the Soul of Stetson come alive for future generations.
For more information about the Soul of Stetson and to view the documentary “Remembering Innsbruck, visit www.stetson.edu/other/soul-of-stetson/.
Photos: by Pamela A. Keene
