April 17, 2020 – Elling Halvorson was a pioneer in so many ways, he was charged with the near impossible task when contracted to build the trans-canyon pipeline in the 1960s, aviation entrepreneur with Papillon Aviation and for us, he was a partner with extraordinary foresight into the future of entertainment at the Grand Canyon. With partner John Siebold and a host of others they opened what is now the Grand Canyon IMAX Theater and the theater has been playing “Grand Canyon: Rivers of Time” ever since. Halvorson Construction was the General Contractor charged with building the 525 seat auditorium with an unprecedented screen size of 60’x80’ and automobile size projection system that back then was state of the art technology.
We lost a friend and partner when Elling passed away on the morning of April 16th 2020 but his leadership and communal spirit lives on and is so apparent in everything that he touched in our community.
-Marty Harris, Director of Operations, Grand Canyon Visitor Center
Ribbon Cutting Ceremony – Tusayan AZ
Janet Rosener – GM GCVC, Elling Halvorson and Marty Harris October 2016
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