Portrait of Rocky Mountain National Park to hang on the White House tree

From the Estes Park Trail Gazette

The idea of a holiday tree in the White House started in 1889, when President Benjamin Harrison’s family decorated a tree, complete with candles. Since then, every president’s family has carried on this tradition. Often the tree is decorated with a theme which is reflective of the First Family or the events of the day.

This year First Lady Laura Bush has chosen to celebrate national parks as the theme and every National Park Service area in the United States was invited to create an ornament for the White House tree.In May Mrs. Bush sent letters to National Park Service areas to explain that, in support of President Bush’s National Park Centennial Initiative, the White House will celebrate our national parks this holiday season by decorating the official White House Christmas tree with special ornaments representing each park. In June a large blank white plastic ball ornament arrived, complete with guidelines.

Rocky Mountain National Park was to designate an artist to depict the most recognizable feature representing the park on the ball, with a deadline of Oct. 1. Any medium that would not alter the shape or size of the ball was acceptable.The park contacted Jim Disney, who agreed readily to create its unique ornament. An accomplished artist, Disney is also an accomplished mountaineer who knows the park’s backcountry intimately. Known primarily for his mountain landscapes, Disney chose a snowy nighttime scene of the park’s most prominent mountains, Longs Peak and Mount Meeker, with a foreground of evergreens lit up with colored lights, to grace the ornament.

He gold leafed the ornament and antiqued it, burnishing it to a beautiful mellow glow. On the back he wrote, “Peace on Earth, Goodwill to All - Rocky Mountain National Park.”The ornament joins hundreds of other ornaments depicting the best of our country’s national treasures on the 18-foot tall White House tree. After the holidays the ornaments will become part of the White House permanent ornament collection. According to the guidelines, the designs and ornaments may not be reproduced or replicated for sale or advertised as ‘designed for the White House.’ Disney, a resident of Loveland, served two terms as a Larimer County Commissioner. He was also selected to be an Artist-in-Residence in Rocky Mountain National Park twice. He began his career as an artist in 1963 and has shown in several galleries and numerous exhibitions throughout the western United States, and his paintings are in collections in the U. S. and several other countries.

A recent painting by Disney of Hagues Peak hangs in the County Commissioners’ lobby of the Larimer County Courthouse in Fort Collins. Disney knows Longs Peak well, as he has summitted it 93 times, plus he has climbed all of the other named peaks in the park.In 2016 the National Park Service will celebrate its 100th birthday. In anticipation, the National Park Centennial Initiative has three key goals: to engage all Americans in preserving our heritage, history and natural resources though philanthropy and partnerships; to reconnect people with their parks; and to build capacity for critical park operations and facilities, and sustain them through the next century.

A painting by Disney, which was his inspiration piece for the ornament, is on display in Rocky Mountain National Park’s Beaver Meadows Visitor Center through the holiday season.

                                     The east face of Longs Peak in the morning sun

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