Wade Brown, a service technician working out of Summit Utilities’ office in Ada, Oklahoma, started hunting when he was about 8 years old, and he couldn’t wait to share his love of the sport with his son, Sam.
That first trip out to hunt deer when Sam was just 7 was mostly about having fun climbing up the ladder into the blind, sitting together and enjoying some father-son time, and sharing just a little bit about how to hunt. Then there was that smile. “Everyone always said Sam had the best smile you could imagine,” said Brown.
But by the next year, the “typical boy” who was funny and ornery and loved the outdoors had started to stumble and fall when he walked or ran. Just before Thanksgiving, Brown and his wife, Annie, learned that Sam had a rare and incurable degenerative neuromuscular disease known as Friedreich’s ataxia. Similar to ALS, the disease causes muscle weakness, loss of balance and coordination, loss of sensation, difficulty speaking and more.
It was a heartbreaking diagnosis that changed everything for the family. Sam went from walking with crutches, then to a walker, then to a wheelchair.
Among the many changes, Brown 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 Brown 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.”
And Sam loved it all, from sitting in the blind waiting patiently for a deer to show itself to making turkey calls and interacting with the wild birds.
Brown and Sam were able to hunt together for six years, until Sam was no longer physically able to hunt in cold weather. Two years later, Sam passed away, a little over a month after his 18th birthday, on Aug. 4, 2018.
In the back of Brown’s mind was the idea of starting his own nonprofit to offer adaptive hunts for people like Sam. He was too emotional to launch in 2018, but in 2021, Brown was ready. With his wife, his youngest daughter, Kathryn Wadley, and his best friend and Sam’s former hunting guide, Trent Woodard, he started Sam’s Legacy Hunting Adventures—“to pour back to others and give them hope,” Brown said.
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 Brown, 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 Brown said. “I know he’s smiling right now.”
For more information or to set up an adaptive hunt in Southeastern Oklahoma, visit samslegacy.org.