Mountain Memorial Pat Ryan, Killed In Plane Crash, Worked For Two Years At Silver

Diana Rude was just 9 years older than Pat Ryan but didn’t mind when he dubbed her his “surrogate mom.”

“He was real close to his own family, so I was real flattered that he called me that,” she said of her fellow ski patroller.

On Jan. 31, Bradford “Pat” Ryan and the rest of his family - his brother, his parents and five longtime friends - died in the crash of Alaska Airlines Flight 261. On Sunday, his ski patrol “kin” gathered at Kellogg’s Silver Mountain ski resort to remember him.

They held a barbecue lunch in the patrol shack near the top of chairlift 2, followed by a memorial service at the lookout atop Silver Mountain. Officiating was Gordon Mills, a Kingston, Idaho, minister and ski patrol member. Afterward, patrol members escorted a symbolic empty toboggan as they skied down the mountain.

Ryan was a snowboarder - one of about six on the patrol roster. In his second year on the patrol, he came up every other winter weekend from Pullman, where he had just earned a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering and worked for Washington State University.

When he was in North Idaho, he stayed at the Coeur d’Alene home of Diana and Dan Rude. He had befriended Diana a couple of years ago at an outdoor emergency care class.

“He would usually come to our house on Friday afternoon or evenings. He’d hit the fridge, get a snack,” she said. “He spent a lot of time with my son Michael, who’s 13. They’d play video games, they’d snowboard. He was also close to our daughter. He was talking with her about college … He was a really good listener.”

Ryan was good at a lot of things, friends said. He coached the University of Idaho rugby team in a near-perfect season last fall. He created the ski patrol’s Internet Web page and was writing a computer program for its equipment swap. He helped director Fred Ogram establish a complicated three-week rotation schedule for the 60 patrollers.

“He was a big guy, kind of a gentle giant type,” said Ogram. “He was willing to help anybody with anything … He was putting in at least 10 hours a week more than the average patroller.”

Ogram was the first of the ski squad to hear of Ryan’s death. He got a call from one of Ryan’s Washington friends two days after the crash.

Ryan was losing his WSU job due to budget cuts, Ogram said. He was hoping to find work that would keep him close to Silver Mountain.

“My fear was that he’d get a job in Seattle and drop off the ski patrol,” said patroller Phil Owens.

Many patrol members take it easy after the first year of intensive training, Owens said. But Ryan took extra classes this year so he could teach first aid and emergency care.

At the time of his death, Ryan was returning from a vacation in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. The trip, Rude said, was partly to celebrate Ryan’s recent graduation and partly to mark the 30th birthday of his brother, Terry, who was an Alaska Airlines flight attendant.

This sidebar appeared with the story: DONATIONS

Ryan scholarship A scholarship has been established in memory of Bradford “Pat” Ryan. Contributions can be made to the Pat Ryan Scholarship Fund at Washington Mutual Bank. For more information contact e-mail address Rmfjli@aol.com.

Photographer Tom Davenport contributed to this story.