June 17, 2015 at 4:23 p.m.
That's our soldier
Ryan Adams Golf Scramble keeps legacy of fallen soldier alive
That's our soldier
The tournament is held every year to remember and honor a young man who didn't look for attention but whose sacrifice on a fall day in 2009 will never be forgotten.
On Oct, 2, 2009 Sgt. Ryan C. Adams, working with the U.S. Army's 101st Airborne Division in Logar Province, Afghanistan, was hit by enemy-controlled rocket propelled-grenades. He did not survive. In the blink of an eye a proud member of the Rhinelander-based 951st Sappers, a Rhinelander High School graduate, a great friend to many, and a loving son and brother, was gone.
Out of the tragedy, the Adams family - Ryan's folks, Pete and Jalane, and his sister, Amanda - began organizing the golf scramble in his honor.
The game of golf held particular significance for Ryan Adams. A football and baseball player in his years at RHS, Ryan fell in love with golf while playing with his father, Pete.
To hear Pete tell the story, it wasn't long before Ryan had a leg up on the links.
"Me and him would play and if I would hit a decent drive, he would try to hit it further, but he was more controlled than I was," Pete said. "Toward the end he would beat me every time, which made me happy."
Unlike the other sports he enjoyed, Jalane Adams said Ryan loved golf simply because of the joy it brought him.
"With golf it's always been a fun sport for him," she said.
The family decided to use the sport Ryan loved to help the community. Every year the Adamses work diligently to gather donations, plan and host the memorial scramble.
There's no executive committee, or flotilla of volunteers. It's just Pete, Jalane and Amanda doing all of the legwork.
It's a labor of love and Pete said he wouldn't have it any other way.
"We can't change what happened, but as long as I am able to keep doing this golf outing, I'm going to keep doing it because it helps people remember Ryan. That's what all of us want, to make sure people remember him," he said. While it can be very challenging to get everything together for the tournament, Jalane said the community has always supported the cause.
"We don't have people helping us go door to door and ask people for (donations), but what is nice is the fact that everybody always says to us that they wouldn't miss it because it's a way of coming together and remembering and it's a fun event." she said.
The scramble has grown over the years. The first year the Adams family hosted approximately 20 teams and this year the field has been capped at 34 teams. Every year brings new golfers and teams.
"I think every year we have had at least one new team." Amanda recalled. "This year, for sure, we have at least two new teams."
Mike Hastreiter, owner and operator of Bucketheads and the Woodpecker Bar and Grill in Rhinelander, is a seasoned veteran. Hastreiter was a friend of Ryan's and has played in the scramble all six years. His businesess sponsor holes each year. Hastreiter said the best part of the scramble is seeing everyone come together for Ryan and the joy it brings to the Adams family.
"Our team goes into every year knowing we don't have a chance in hell to win, but it's a privilege to be able to do anything possible to honor Ryan and his memory," Hastreiter said. "We get such satisfaction watching the smiles on Jalane, Pete, and Amanda's faces every year as they watch how many people come to remember Ryan. It's also great watching all of Ryan's close friends get together every year to remember their lost buddy."
Each year Amanda Adams sits on the first tee selling raffle tickets as the golfers pass through. She said the event is a reunion of sorts.
"I see every team and that's my favorite part," she said. "(To) just sit and talk to everybody because I don't see them ever. They're from Madison and wherever else, so it's neat to just have brothers again," she explained.
Even the trophy the golfers are vying for has a story. It started as a gift presented to the Adamses during Ryan's memorial service by the Marine Corps League - a sculpture of a soldier's bayonet, helmet and boots - and evolved into something more.
"This was handed to us at his wake ... they gave that to us and everyone was like, 'Where are we going to put this huge thing and what are we going to do with it?" Jalane explained. "And then the decision was made to use it as a trophy."
Now it's the centerpiece of the trophy. The tournament winners' names are engraved on the bottom.
Every year the scramble brings in roughly 30 hole sponsors and many more donations from local businesses. The money raised from entry fees and raffles is used to provide scholarships to local teens.
Pete Adams said initially the idea was to give the scholarships to building trades students - which was Ryan's field of interest - but it is becoming more difficult to find a recipient in that field.
"We want it to go to (someone in) building trades and when we say that it's not just plumbers or electricians or construction. It could be the engineer or the architect, in that field," Pete explained. "It's becoming more and more difficult every year to find that because we haven't gotten many building trades students."
The Adams family receives about 40 applications every year and because of the increasing struggle to find building trades students, this past year they began to take some other factors into consideration.
This past year for the first time they chose a student who's family was in the military.
Jasmine Fanning was last year's recipient. Her father, Jason Dailey, served with Ryan in Afghanistan.
"The person who got one of the scholarships this (past) year was a daughter of a young man who's in Ryan's unit, who was actually with him in Afghanistan, who was in his actual platoon. She was a good student so she had that, too," Jalane explained.
The family gives away $6,000 in scholarship money each year. Any additional money raised from the tournament is put into a fund to ensure the scholarship remains long after the family is no longer around to award it.
"What we are doing with that is building up a fund that when we're not around, we can reduce the scholarships to say $500 a person and have it go on forever," Pete explained.
"Every year we have managed to come out ahead so that we can have that as the backup to be able to go on to the next year and build up the fund," Jalane added.
Remembering 'our soldier'
Ryan's legacy and the community's support is apparent everywhere the family goes.
"Even one of the banks we went in, we were talking to the person we needed to (talk) to get the donation and the teller was like, 'Oh, is that our soldier?'" Amanda said. "So people refer to him as though they knew him and that's kind of cool."
The annual golf scramble is just one of a few ways the family and the community remember Sgt. Adams.
Last year on May 17 - Armed Forces Day -the city of Rhinelander formally changed Military Road, which runs in front of the National Guard Armory, to Adams Way.
The family was very touched to have the road named after their son and brother.
"I think it's amazing and very honoring," Pete said of the change.
"It's an honor," Jalane said following last year's ceremony. "Our community has been so supportive and for them to want to do this in our son's honor, that he meant that much to this community, to the AMVETS, to all the people who pushed for this to happen ... it's more than words can (say)."
Perhaps a more touching tribute came from the family itself.
Amanda gave birth to a baby girl nearly three years ago and named her Rhyan in honor of her brother.
"When I found out I was pregnant, whether it was a boy or a girl, it was going to be Ryan. There was no other name in my mind," she said.
Rhyan is a beautiful little blonde-haired girl with an infectious smile. Although she is still too young to understand the story behind her name, she knows her uncle was someone special and she will be more than happy to tell you he was a soldier.
"We obviously have pictures of my brother everywhere and everyone has told her since she was 6 months old, (she has heard) this is uncle Ryan, this is uncle Ryan, so she looks at a picture and immediately knows," Amanda explained.
Amanda said she hopes Rhyan doesn't fell pressured to live up to her late uncle's legacy but hopes she comes to learn how special he was.
"I hope she doesn't feel that she has to walk in his footsteps because I don't want her to have to try and live up to him, but I want her to know that he was a great person and that it is an honor to be named after him," Amanda explained. "I don't think she has to do everything that he did, but I do want her to have the kind of character my brother had."
There are a few of Ryan's qualities Amanda hopes to instill in her daughter.
"His sense of humor," Amanda said. "The fact that he could make light of any situation and his smile."
Camp Ryan Adams
Recently, a hunting camp in west-central Wisconsin was transformed into a place where veterans and active soldiers can transition back to civilian life. It is named in Ryan's honor.
Allan and Katherine Lamovec, landowners and operators of CRA, were running the original camp (Wisconsin Adventures on Wheels) which was a hunting camp for disabled people located in the town of Willard (southwest of Abbotsford; southeast of Eau Claire) when Lamovec met a few young men who served with Ryan in Afghanistan. From there he decided to direct the camp toward helping recovering military members and - with the permission of the Adams family - turned the camp into Camp Ryan Adams.
Lamovec said they still plan to host hunts for disabled people but the main focus has become current and former military members.
"There is 4 1/2 miles of granite roads or paths for wheelchairs. (Lamovec) has eight handicap accessible deer (and turkey hunting) stands," Pete explained. "We're trying to get it to, to raise money to where it won't cost a soldier anything to go to this. Plane ticket from Florida, whatever it may be. That's what eventually we want it to be."
Pete serves on the board of directors for Camp Ryan Adams and does whatever needs to be done to help the camp function.
"I'll be involved in the hunts. If they're in wheelchairs (I'll help) to get them out there, get them set up, go get them. If they get a deer we go get it for them. I had been helping replant something like 800 oak trees that died, so just whatever needs to be done," Pete said.
"The primary purpose of the camp is to deal with PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) and related (issues confronting) young men and women returning (from service), even if they were not in combat," Lamovec said. "They all go through a VA system that sincerely wants to help them but PTSD is a moving target, not a lost limb or a definable physical injury," Lamovec explained.
"It's like a therapy session. We use nature's healing balm to help these soldiers begin to reformulate their lives and adapt back to their former lives in their community."
Pete says the goal of Camp Ryan Adams is to get military members together while enjoying the outdoors in the hope they will realize they're not alone in their experiences in the military.
"We're hoping that it will be five or six guys hunting there and they will all have been through the same thing, so they will start talking to each other and realize they're not alone in the situation," Pete explained. "Most soldiers have lost a fellow soldier when they went over there. Rhinelander was actually amazing, they only lost one. That's very unusual."
Doug Alderton, a Rhinelander man who was with Ryan in Afghanistan, now serves on the board of directors with Pete. Camp Ryan Adams has had a positive effect on his life after the military, he said.
"Without a shadow of a doubt, my ability to be back out in the outdoors stemmed from (a friend) helping me to do so and the way that I felt after (returning to outdoor activities.) I instantly wanted to be able to help any other veterans that were going through the same type of depression and PTSD to let them know they're not on their own," he said. "There are other guys out there that are dealing (with the same thing) and I want to help them get through it and that's what I think the idea behind Camp Ryan Adams is."
What would Ryan say?
His family says Sgt. Adams was never one to draw attention to himself. So what would he think about the golf scramble, road rededication and Camp Ryan Adams?
Jalane thinks she'd catch an earful from her son.
"He would have been furious and he would have blamed me for everything because I would have liked to make a big deal out of it," she said. "He would not have wanted it. He'd be embarrassed, but I think he'd be honored to know. That's just him. He would think there are other things more important than that."
Amanda concurred.
"He was just too humble about what he actually did. If I ever asked him anything about it he would say, 'Mandy it's my job, it's just what I do.' He was never (bragging about being a solider). It was his job. He did what he did and that was it," she said.
This Saturday, many of Adams' friends and family members will return to the links. They will try to replicate his golf swing and enjoy the day as he would want them to do. In the same unassuming way Ryan did his job as a soldier, they will salute their fallen hero and do their part to ensure his legacy lives on.
Lindsey Nylund may be reached at [email protected].
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