PARIS — The Paris Cape Historical Society will host a Ski Museum of Maine program at 7 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 18, at the Paris Town Office. The program is free and open to the public. Light refreshments will be served.

Scott Andrews, research director of the Kingfield-based Ski Museum, will present a Fireside Chat, a personally narrated digital slideshow that features more than 100 vintage photos. The title of the show is “Getting Organized: How local ski clubs, schools and colleges built the sport of skiing in Maine.”

The story starts in the 1920s, when outing clubs and winter sports teams became popular with high school and college students and winter carnivals proliferated in dozens of Maine cities and towns. Andrews notes that Paris High School was among the first in the state to jump on the winter sports bandwagon.

Many Olympic skiers from Maine got started in high school, including Leslie Bancroft of South Paris. Bancroft began cross-country skiing while a student at Oxford Hills and went directly from high school competition to the U.S. Ski Team and the Olympics of 1980 in Lake Placid and 1988 in Calgary.

The Ski Museum of Maine and the Paris Cape Historical Society invite members of the public to share photos and memories at the gathering.

For more information, contact Cynthia Immonen at 743-2384 or Scott Andrews at 773-9609 or [email protected]