There were three judges in the Spokane area: Wilhelmina Timm (National judge); Elsa Pinkham and Grant Hahn (both high test judges). Miss Timm realized the three of them were getting older and would want to retire from judging soon, so she organized and led a judges’ school in Spokane. Jane remembered there being nine people attending the school, seven of whom were parents. Out of those first nine people, six of them received their low test judging appointment in singles/pairs skating, and four of them received a low test appointment in dance.
After receiving her initial judging appointments in singles/pairs and dance, Jane continued to trial judge and advance in the judging ranks. Trial judging in this part of the country can be a real challenge due to the great distances between ice rinks, and she remembered driving to Seattle, WA; Great Falls, MT; Sun Valley, ID; Portland, OR; Salt Lake City, UT; and Santa Rosa, CA.
In addition to driving for many hours from one rink to another, there was the sometimes challenging weather in the Pacific Northwest. Jane recollected a drive to Portland during a bad snowstorm in 1971 for the Northwest Pacific Regionals, where she was scheduled to judge. She and Dottie Weis, another judge, drove together from Spokane, closely following behind a truck for a while to shelter them. Luckily, by the time they got to the Tri-Cities, the storm had calmed down. One of the other judges from Spokane was so daunted by the storm that he ended up turning around and driving back home; he was later shocked to hear that the two women had braved the storm and successfully reached the competition.
Jane’s son, Michael, recalled two other memorable competitions. “My Mom and Dad (were) both trialing at (the) 1974 Pacific Coast Sectionals in Portland. One of Portland’s infamous ‘silver thaw’ ice storms hit during the competition and coated Portland with so much ice that the California competitors were skating in the motel parking lots.” And in Great Falls for the 1980 Pacific Coast Sectionals, there was “…a temperature drop from Friday afternoon 50 degrees to Sunday morning -20 degrees.”
1991 was the last Northwest Pacific Regionals Jane judged. Tonya Harding and Rosalynn Sumners were probably judged by Jane, as they both skated at competitions in Portland and Seattle, and she judged all over the Pacific Northwest. Jane was also a judge at Pacific Coast Sectionals for synchronized team skating from 1989-1997.
A native of Washington, Jane makes her home in Spokane. Her husband, Eugene, who passed away in 1988, was a low test/bronze dance judge. Her two sons also became judges: Michael is currently a National dance judge and a Sectional dance referee, with a Gold test appointment in all levels; he is also qualified as a Sectional synchronized team skating judge and a Regional singles/pairs referee. Charles was a judge for many years, but at this time is no longer judging.
What a great kind of family togetherness the Bauers have, with their common commitment to skating! As Michael notes, “From the time of my brother’s first appointment (1979) through my Dad’s death in 1988, the entire family were judges - an extremely rare case in USFSA history.”
(Information for this article was gathered from Jane Bauer and Michael Bauer.)