September 26, 2000
Rocky Mountain News
By Gary Massaro
Lakewood- Joseph Steuart never got to make his dream trip. He wanted to go caribou hunting with his father, Kim. He was even saving up for it. But leukemia got the better of him. Joseph got sick in May 1999 and died in January. He was 14.
When Joseph’s folks, Kim and Vickie, were cleaning out his room, they found a shoebox filled with change - $50.25 in all. And they found this note: Caribou Trip. They decided to use the small change to make a big deal in some other kid’s life. Kim and Vickie used that $50 as the first contribution to a charitable organization they founded in Joseph’s name, a fund to send other terminally ill kids on fishing, hunting and camping trips. That was Joseph’s big love - the outdoors. He enjoyed hunting and fishing, It was still a good hunt if he didn’t kill anything, a good fishing trip if he got skunked. "It was the going," Kim said.
Joseph and Kim were hunting and fishing buddies. Kim only missed two big-game hunts in his life - when Joseph was born and when he was sick in the hospital last year. Joseph’s love for the outdoors extended to the creatures that inhabit them. Kim recalled a fishing trip to Deep Lake in the Flattops Wilderness Area. Fishing wasn’t so hot, so Joseph went to the other side of the lake. "I saw him bent down, chasing something that was hopping ahead of him," Kim said. It was a bird entangled in fishing line. Joseph caught the bird, gently cut away the line with his pocket knife and freed the critter.
Joseph and Kim made one last fishing trip last year , to Wolford Reservoir
near Kremmling. "We had to get doctor’s permission," Kim
said. "I had to bait his hook." Joseph caught the limit. "He
was the only one to catch fish," Kim said. "It was like he was
the only one entitled. Kim remembers the struggle and courage of Joseph
that day while they walked to and from their vehicle. "It was not
a far walk," Kim said. "But for him, at his stage, it was a
very long walk." And that’s where Kim got the idea for the name
of the organization to commemorate his son: Joseph’s Journey. Tax-deductible
donations or inquiries: Joseph’s Journey, P.O. Box 150453 Lakewood,
CO 80215-0453.
