Community Profile: Karen Viel

A longtime local resident that grew up in the Valley of the Sun and now is spending her 20th winter in Incline Village as a local business owner and avid ice skater

Many people choose to retire in Scottsdale, Ariz., located in the Valley of the Sun, because of its mild winter climate.

Not Karen Viel.

She grew up in the city, near Phoenix, and graduated from Arcadia High School. Scottsdale is known for its upscale shopping areas and its distinct western American Styles — not for ice skating.

“My dad gave me (ice skating) lessons for my birthday present,” Viel said.

She was eight years old and the little ice skating rink was located close to her home in Scottsdale. Throughout most of her years skating in Arizona Viel had the same coach.

“I liked it immediately,” she said.

At 13 Viel went to ice skating camp in Sun Valley, Idaho. She spent the 10-week camp performing shows every Saturday night and quickly learned that she liked performing over competition.



After graduating from high school, Viel went off to attend the University of Colorado in Boulder. While in Colorado she also learned to ski and taught skating in Keystone, Colorado for a season.



Joining the Ice Capades

In 1940 John H. Harris founded the Ice Capades in Hershey, Pa. featuring theatrical performances with magnificent costumes and performed on ice. The shows were very popular as family entertainment throughout the United States for several decades and many young people were interested in joining the cast.

“I left college to join the Ice Capades,” Viel said. “The timing was right and I knew I could go back to college later.”

Viel explained that she knew this was her opportunity to take her skating to a different level and college would always be there for her.

“A friend took me to an audition.” she said.

Viel performed in the Ice Capades for two years with the Ice Capades West Company. The original Ice Capades show was now called Ice Capades East and they had added both Ice Capades West and Ice Capades Continental. Each company had a separate show that moved from company to company. This way the performance could be used for three years.



“We trained for six weeks before a new show,” Viel said. “We were only allowed five hours a week to rehearse.”

Viel said that it was a hard life-style, living out of a suitcase and traveling all the time but that she also took advantage of her time off to travel and learn new things. Other members of the shows would watch soap operas and sit around and it was not how she wanted to spend her time off.

Instead, Viel traveled to places like San Francisco or Lake Tahoe when they played in Oakland, Calif. every year. She also learned to ride horses.

“One of the trips I took while in the Ice Capades was to Lake Tahoe,” she said. “I took a day trip with a girl friend to the South Shore.”

The annual Winter Carnival is held in St. Paul, Minnesota and is one of the oldest and largest winter festival’s in the country. While working here Viel admitted that she did not take advantage of any side trips because she was just interested in staying warm.

“The coldest place I had to go to was the Winter Carnival in Minnesota,” Viel said. “It was the coldest place I’ve ever been. It’s not my cup of tea.”

After the Ice Capades

After leaving the Ice Capades Viel went back to Arizona and attended Arizona State University. Viel also taught ice skating in Arizona at Tempe when she was attending ASU.

When her family moved to Fallbrook, Calif., Viel and her daughter also moved to California. In California she taught skating one summer and also got a degree in Business Masters Finance from National University. Fallbrook is another area with very mild winter conditions.

While Viel was living in Fallbrook, Calif. that she met her husband, Ken. After dating for about a year -and-half they married and have already celebrated their 25th anniversary.

“After our son was born I did some substitute teaching in Fallbrook.” she said.

But for the most part Viel was a full-time mother.

It was when the family was invited to spend some time at a friends cabin in Tahoe City that life changed for the Viel family.

“The whole family came for a visit and six months later we moved here,” Viel said.

The children were ages 5 and 9 when the family moved to Incline Village.



“It was raining one day in Tahoe City so we saw some sunshine at Incline and came over here,” Viel said.

They also decided that they liked the schools in Incline. The Viels moved here in 1989.

Today they live in the same house that they moved into in 1989 and still have the same neighbors across and the street and others around the neighborhood.

“It is a pretty stable neighborhood,” Viel said.

At home in Incline Village

After moving to Incline Village, Viel’s husband worked doing sales at Northstar while she worked in admissions at SNC for about five years.

As the children became involved in school they also became involved in activities that kept Viel busy. Both children did some ski racing through Diamond Peak Ski Resort.

“We did lots of trips to Mammoth and lots of local races,” she said. “One year our son, Dane, was in the Junior Olympics at Bogus Basin, Idaho, about 45 miles from Boise.”

Their daughter Sharisse played soccer in Incline as well.

“We were always busy parents with PTA and we ran races,” she said.

When their son traveled to Brazil as an exchange student Viel traveled there to visit. During these years Viel said she skated very little.

Back to skating

The Viels own Incline Vacation Rentals and work together now in the business doing vacation rentals and long-term rentals. They also enjoy taking ballroom dance lessons at the Incline Village Recreation Center twice a week in Incline and, in the summer, they go water skiing or boating. They also enjoy traveling on cruises to warm-water places.

“I belong to a local book club and enjoy reading,” Viel said. “It’s a group of girls I grew up with and it meets once a month.”

About two and half years ago Viel started skating again. After suffering a fall on the ice and receiving an injury to her head, Viel decided to start training and taking lessons again.

She now drives two days a week to the South Lake Tahoe Ice Arena to skate on a 37,000 square-foot indoor sheet of ice. Viel travels from Incline with another woman that works for her.

“It is a fun little group,” she said. “There is a guy that skates in South Shore and is 85 years old. He skated in the Ice Follies. Jill Shipstad (whose parents owned the Ice Follies) also teaches skating down at South Shore.”



Because her current skating coach lives in Redwood City, Calif., Viel travels the four-and-one half hours to Redwood City about once a month to train. She is currently hoping to complete her gold medal work in ice dancing in January or February of 2009. She has four more tests to complete.

“The two coldest rinks I have ever skated in are South Shore and Redwood City,” said Viel.

Compulsory ice dances do not require jumping or spinning, which is why ice dancing is popular among many adult skaters.

“My body does not go off the ground. I did that when I was young and had that satisfaction and don’t need it now,” she said.

Another reason adults enjoy ice dancing is that they have many ice dance weekends for social ice dancing.



Viel attends ice dance weekends in both San Jose, Calif. and Sun Valley, Idaho.

“San Jose is like going to a high school dance,” Viel said.“You stand around waiting to see who is going to ask you to skate.”

Viel said Sun Valley is more adult-oriented and the age level is older. Her husband usually travels to Sun Valley with her too.

But today Viel’s ice skating is again not her priority. She is currently awaiting the birth of her first grandchild and when her daughter calls, she said she will drop everything to travel to be there for that memorable moment.



Quick Facts:

Family: Husband, Ken

Two children, Dane and Sharisse

Waiting for arrival of first grandchild

Education: Business Masters in Finance from National University

Hobbies: Ice Skating, snow and water skiing, ballroom dancing, traveling and reading

Business: Incline Vacation Rentals

Distinction: Skated for two years in the Ice Capades



Starting in January the Community Profile will run monthly the last week of each month. If you have ideas for community profiles, contact Jean Eick at jeick@tahoebonanza.com or (775) 831-4666.