From Grief to Giving Back: How Wade Brown is Making a Difference
America’s natural gas utilities are deeply entwined with the communities they serve and are a part of. Giving back to our communities is a key part of what AGA member companies work to do. For Wade Brown, a service technician with Summit Utilities in Ada, Oklahoma, a personal tragedy was the catalyst that led him to find a new way to serve his community in honor of his late son, Sam.
A lifelong hunter, Wade started hunting for the first time at the age of eight. When his son Sam was born, he was excited to share his love of hunting with him, taking him on his first deer hunting trip at seven years old, teaching him the basics of hunting while bonding in a hunting blind. Unfortunately, the first trip would prove to be the last for some time.
Within a year, Sam was diagnosed with Friedreich’s ataxia, a rare and incurable degenerative neuromuscular disease similar to ALS. The disease causes muscle weakness, loss of balance and coordination, loss of sensation, difficulty speaking and more. Previously a typical and energetic boy, Sam required crutches, then a walker and finally a wheelchair.
Among the many changes, Wade quietly sold all his hunting equipment. “I was clueless as to what kind of opportunities were out there,” he said. “I thought, why even try when I don’t even have the opportunity to do this with my son anymore?”
Then he found an organization in Oklahoma City that offered adaptive hunting. As Wade and Sam sat in that blind again for the second time, “It was the opportunity to do something I dreamed of doing with my son,” said Brown. “The feeling was of joy and relief to be able to do this when I had given up. It gave me a sense of hope again.”
Father and son would hunt together for the next six years, until Sam could no longer hunt in cold weather. He passed away two years later, on August 4, 2018 – a little over a month after his eighteenth birthday.
After taking several years to process his grief, Wade decided the time was right to move forward with his own nonprofit to offer adaptive hunts for people like Sam. Alongside his wife, youngest daughter, Kathryn Wadley, and his best friend and Sam’s former hunting guide Trent Woodward, he started Sam’s Legacy Hunting Adventures – “to pour back to others and give them hope,” said Wade.
The nonprofit offers free guided hunting experiences for adults or children with complex physical limitations. Equipment including gun mounts, cameras and specialized video monitors are used so hunters can enjoy the full experience of the sport.
The response, says Wade, has been wonderful. As for Sam, “He’d be very proud of what we’ve done for others in similar situations as what he was in,” an emotional Wade said. “I know he’s smiling right now.”
Wade Brown’s commitment to helping others who find themselves in the position he and his family were in is making a difference by giving people the ability to take joy in a sport they or their loved ones truly care about. Sam’s Legacy Hunting Adventures, and the work they do, is service to their community in the best traditions of our industry. Summit Utilities and our broader industry are proud to have a person like Wade Brown as part of our own community.
For more information or to set up an adaptive hunt in Southeastern Oklahoma, visit samslegacy.org.