Gary Black Jr. Culture The non-profit Sun Valley Center for the Arts and Humanities (SVC) was initiated in 1969 by Mrs. Glenn Cooper and Bill Janss, who later married. It attained non-profit status and was officially founded in 1971; the original campus was located off Dollar Road in Sun Valley. Studios and workshops were open to the public and focused on ceramics, founded by James Romberg; photography, founded by Sheri Heiser and Peter deLory; and fine arts, founded by David W. Wharton. The SVC offered year-round workshops, lectures, and exhibitions by nationally recognized artists and craft persons to both residents and tourists to Blaine County. Today the Sun Valley Center for the Arts has its main building in nearby Ketchum as well as a historic house and classroom in Hailey. The annual Sun Valley Writers' Conference (SVWC) was founded by journalist Reva B. Tooley], with the inaugural event run in 1995. Robin Eidsmo is executive director (since 2014), and novelist John Burnham Schwartz, essayist Anne Taylor Fleming, and Pulitzer Prize-winner Liaquat Ahamed help to mount the event each year. In 2018, The Argyros Performing Arts Center opened in downtown Ketchum. Since opening, the 450-seat theater has hosted nationally and internationally recognized artists such as Robert Cray, Jean-Yves Thibaudet, Isabella Boylston, Peter Cetera, Kristen Chenoweth, Rita Wilson, and others. Adaptive sports for the disabled The Sun Valley region boasts a wide variety of year-round adaptive sports programs for the disabled including the local DSUSA Chapter – Higher Ground Sun Valley; Wood River Ability Program; Sage Brush Equine Training Center for the Handicapped and Camp Rainbow Gold, a youth cancer program. Two sections A small mountain saddle splits the city of Sun Valley into two sections. The northern section is centered around the famous Sun Valley Lodge, Inn, and the "village" complex of shops, condominiums, and original 18-hole golf course (27 holes by 2008), which winds its way up the Trail Creek valley to the northeast. This area is referred to as simply "Sun Valley." The southern area of Elkhorn, adjacent to Dollar Mountain, has its own condo complex and 18-hole golf course. Quite distinct and separate, including a drier "sagebrush" appearance, it was initially developed in 1972. The Sun Valley Company took over day-to-day operations of the Elkhorn Golf Club in July 2011 and named Rick Hickman director of golf operations for the company. Adjacent to Sun Valley is the older