Casper Oimoen

Casper Oimoen was born in Norway but came to the United States in 1923, settling near Minot, North Dakota. During his ski jumping career in America, he won over 400 medals, winning the Northwestern Ski Jumping Championship nine times, six Montana State Ski Jumping titles, 10 Central United States Ski Jumping championships, and he was a three-time National champion. He competed at the 1932 and 1936 Winter Olympics. He had also been selected for the 1928 Olympic Team but was told that his American citizenship papers were invalid, and that he was not a US citizen. However, it turned out that immigration officials had misspelled his last name as Simeon. US Olympic officials attempted to correct the errot, but even the personal intervention of President Calvin Coolidge came too late to allow Oimoen to compete at the 1928 Winter Games.

Oimoen was inducted into the US Ski Hall of Fame in 1963. In 1973 he was given the Theodore Roosevelt Rough Rider Award by the Governor of North Dakota, and he was made a member of the Scandanavian-American Hall of Fame in 1984. Oimoen’s portrait is on display at the North Dakota State Capital, and a bronze statue of him stands in the Scandanavian Heritage Park in Minot. His business career was as a contractor.