Bend couple set up fund for climbers’ kids

BEND, Ore. – Like many people across Oregon, Bend resident Jim Kress heard the news about the three climbers missing on Mount Hood, and the massive rescue effort launched on their behalf, and saw pieces of his own life reflected in their story.

More than a decade ago, Kress hiked the Pacific Crest Trail from Mexico to Canada, and strangers often gave him help that allowed him to complete the five-month trek.

So when Dallas, Texas, landscape architect Kelly James, 48, was found dead in a snow cave on Dec. 17, Kress and his wife, Jane, decided they should try to help James’ children.

“We just heard that Kelly had four kids and it seemed like the right thing to do,” Kress said.

This week, the Kresses donated $100 to start the Climbers Kids Scholarship Fund, he said.

Donations to the fund can be made at any U.S. Bank branch, in person or via mail, according to a bank representative.

Money from the fund will also be used to help the family of the two other missing climbers, Brian Hall of Dallas and Jerry “Nikko” Cooke of New York City, who are presumed to be dead on the mountain.

The three men set out Dec. 8 for what was supposed to be a two-day climb to the peak and back. But on Dec. 10, James called his family on a cell phone to say the party was in trouble and his two companions were no longer with him.

Kress, the chair of Central Oregon Community College’s Business Department, is an avid outdoorsman who learned that he had climbed peaks in Mexico and Argentina that Kelly James also scaled, he said. He hasn’t spoken with the James family, Kress said, but he has reached out to their pastor to let them know of the fund.