My brother Scott passed away. From what we know, he was sitting at his computer desk and just fell over.
He was supposed to arrive in Phoenix around midnight last night and when we didn’t hear from him by this morning we started making phone calls.
We were able to get a deputy out to his apartment and have the office open the door. The chain was still latched from the inside but nobody responded. The fire department was called to enter the apartment and they found him there. A detective was brought in and said there was no sign of foul play. Given the family history with heart conditions and his many years of smoking, they’re guessing it was a heart attack. A medical examiner was supposed to do an autopsy on Monday but it sounds like they’re just going to do an “external examination”.
Scott absolutely loved the Boomershoot, and he loved sharing it with me, my wife Rachel, and our nephew Cody. He looked forward to it every year and planned ahead for it. He’d come to Phoenix for Thanksgiving and Christmas, but the only other time he’d travel anywhere was the annual trek to Idaho so he could enjoy the event you put on.
I wanted to write and tell you the sad news, but also to thank you. The Boomershoot gave us a few extra days every year to hang out and have a good time together.
Brian Keszler
Email, November 21, 2015
[This is Scott at the Boomershoot staff dinner April 28th, 2011:
Here he is making targets at the Taj Mahal April 28th, 2011:
Here he is cleaning equipment after making targets at Boomershoot Mecca May 2nd, 2014:
Near the tree line May 2nd, 2015 with his brother Brian on the left, sister-in-law Rachel in the middle and Scott on the right. I don’t know the name of the guy wearing camouflage:
Scott has been attending Boomershoot since, I think, 2003. For a few years he would drive to Boomershoot from his home in Fargo North Dakota. Later he got a job in the Washington D.C. area and would drive from Virginia to North Dakota, load up his pickup, and then drive to Boomershoot. Yes, I said DRIVE! That’s about 2500 miles each way.
After a couple years of attending he volunteered to help. I accepted and he was always the first person, after me, to arrive. He brought the 200 foot tape we used to mark the shooting positions each year. He helped make the targets. He helped pound stakes, place targets, and came up with new ideas to make Boomershoot better. Each year he brought the two steel targets we would put on the hillside between 550 and 700 yards from the shooting line. If you hear the clang of a bullet on steel in any of the Boomershoot videos during the main event on Sunday it was almost for certain from one of Scott’s targets being hit.
The last several years he always picked shooting position number 46. This is in the “Main” section just to the left of the berm.
He also left a few comments here on this blog. There are 29 comments by my count. Here are some of the better ones:
- 2011/12/14 at 4:38 am
- 2012/08/08 at 9:04 pm
- 2013/01/07 at 5:25 am
- 2013/02/04 at 4:55 am
- 2013/11/03 at 2:31 am
Other blog posts that make mention of Scott:
He was 53 years old. That is much too young to die.
Scott will be greatly missed.—Joe]
Sorry to hear of his passing Joe.
Wow, just wow! He will be greatly missed. After he collapsed on the hill a couple years ago, I begged him to go have a complete workup and he assured me he would, though he said it with a big smile. He had left a wrench on one of the targets a couple years ago, and someone had given it to me thinking it was one of ours from the Precision Rifle clinic. After I got home, I realized I had an extra, and then realized it must have been his. I returned it last Boomershoot, to a smiling and gracious Scott who laughed about having left it up there and was suprised it hadn’t been shot.
We found out we were the same age, and laughed about our fading memories!
Scott, you will be missed, and thanks for being a part of making Boomershoot such a great event!
Joe, thanks for letting us know.
I strongly suggested something along those same lines. When he arrived at Boomershoot 2015 I asked if he had seen a doctor about the issue. He said that he had and they couldn’t find anything wrong. IIRC they decided the incident was from poor hydration, poor eating, and the unusual amount of exercise that day for him.
The last shooting I did in 2015 was with his 338 LM against his steel. We talked for a while about his plans to put a can on it, and parted with plans for shenanigans next year.
I guess there isn’t always a next year.
Shocked! By all accounts, we were best friends. I worked with Scott on a daily basis through multiple projects for more than 10 years. He had greatly modified his diet and had lost substantial weight a few years ago, and kept it off. He was quitting smoking, and was weaning himself down to low levels of nicotine. He was conscientiously working on taking care of himself, so this was quite a surprise to me. We also enjoyed activities together. He was a regular guest in our home and my boys loved doing things with him as well. We had dinner together regularly, as recently as last Wednesday evening. He seemed perfectly normal and was not experiencing any problems to speak of.
He will be sorely missed.
while i just recently had gotten to know Scott, I had really developed a bond with him that short time. His passion for coding and ensuing the highest quality as unparalleled.
Rick, nice to hear from you again, and glad to know the Scott had “Family” out in the DC area.
As Rick said he will be sorely missed
Man am I sad to hear that. He was one of the friendliest guys at the event. It will be lonely staking out the hill without him. Maybe we could get together and buy some steel to replace his. Whenever we hear a gong, we’d know it was going out to Scott.
He will be missed indeed.
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