Ski Shack plans benefit for employee battling cancer

If you’re a skier or rider, you probably know Lyle Corey since there are only two ski shops in the Coeur d’Alene area. He’s the cheery graying 6-foot mustachioed dude who helped you select and fit your equipment in Hayden’s Ski Shack.

He helped you; now Corey can really use your help.

A reformed smoker, he puffed cigarettes for more than 35 years and now is paying the near-inevitable price: He’s developed lung cancer, and has no insurance to pay for the upcoming procedures and probable operation.

Consequently, his employers are throwing a benefit for him, and you just might pick up some great gear while helping a good guy regain his health.

More about the affair later. Here’s some stuff you probably don’t know about Corey:

His appearance belies it, but Corey has celebrated only 15 birthdays. Yep. But in “real” years he’s 60 because he was one of those Feb. 29 babies.

A Hayward, Calif. native, he grew up in Bozeman and Belgrade, Mont. and served two years in the Army. After his military service he graduated from Montana State University in 1972 with a social work degree.

Corey began his professional career in Los Angeles where he worked in a residential group home for kids with multiple handicaps. There he met his wife, Robin, a special education teacher who was raised in Sandpoint.

They moved to Idaho in 1976 to raise their children, daughter, Dakota and son, Shea.

For the next 17 years Corey worked in family and children’s services for the state, but resigned to start a career in the retail industry.

While attending college, he’d worked in a ski shop, so he applied for a job with Ski Shack, offering to work for free to prove himself. After only three days, owner Carolyn Lyden hired him.

“He was knowledgeable and skilled, but his winning disposition clinched it for us,” she says. “It was obvious from the beginning that Lyle likes people, and everyone responds to his smile,” she says.

Ski Shack is a family-owned business with only seven employees, so can’t provide health insurance for its workers.

“I carried Cobra insurance for a year-and-a-half, but at $785 a month, we just couldn’t afford it, so we dropped it,” Corey says. “It was a calculated risk but, until now, I’ve always been healthy.”

Ski Shack closes for the summer, so he’s worked construction and sold tractors during those months-long breaks.

His wife worked as a special education teacher for 15 years in Bonners Ferry and Coeur d’Alene, and she recently started a new career in the field of disability support services. However, the insurance she carries through that job won’t cover Corey’s medical expenses since he had cancer when she obtained it.

“Now the bills are coming in,” he says, “and it looks like the four days I spent in the hospital for tests will cost us $6,000 to $9,000. Next, I’m going to have chemotherapy to stop the cancer’s growth and to clear my lymph nodes. Then it’ll probably be surgery to remove a tumor from one of my lungs.

“I’ve been told to expect bills that could total $100,000. And while I’m out of work, I obviously won’t have any income.”

Corey has applied for assistance from the Veterans Administration but has been told since his and his wife’s combined income might exceed allowable limits.

While they’re planning the benefit for him and soliciting prizes that will be offered during a silent auction, Lyden and her daughter Julie Vucinich, the store manager, are selling raffle tickets over the counter for a Burton Custom snowboard or a pair of skis. The drawing for those will be at the end of the ski season.

But the big event is coming.

The ski industry representatives who know Corey are responding with donations for a silent auction. So far those include skis, snowboards, goggles, hats, gloves, clothing, two condominium stays at Schweitzer Mountain Resort, one for a week, another for three days, and season passes for Schweitzer and the Lookout ski area.

And, nonindustry fans are donating a guided fishing trip for two on Priest Lake, a cord of wood and a selection of hair products.

The benefit will be on April 9 from 5 to 8 p.m. at the Caddyshack, 1100 W. Prairie in Hayden. So if you’re hankering for some new gear or vacations at an affordable price and want to help a good guy, plan to be there.

“I’m going to beat this,” Corey says. “Dakota is getting married this September, and I’m going to walk her down the aisle.”