Tom Whittaker

Former Outdoor Program Staff Member and Founder of C.W. HOG

Originally from Wales, Tom first came to work for Idaho State University's Outdoor Program in the mid 1970s.  He got to Pocatello in a round-about way, first working on the crew of a 65-foot yacht, traveling from port to port and eventually reaching the United States.  While in the States, he picked up odd jobs, including working as an iron worker on high rise buildings.  A British friend of Tom's, Bill March, encouraged him to apply for the Graduate Assistantship position open in the ISU Outdoor Program.  He did and was hired immediately.

Tom taught climbing and kayaking classes for the Outdoor Program and organized a variety of trips for all seasons.  Also working for the Outdoor Program at this time was Jeff Rhoads and Kellie Erwin (later to become Kellie Rhoads).  Tom, Jeff, and Kellie climbed and boated together and developed a friendship that would be close and long-lasting.  Some 20 years later, they formed the nucleus of a climbing team which, in 1998, resulted in both Tom and Jeff reaching the summit of Everest.  Remarkably, Jeff would make the summit twice.

After Tom completed a Master of Arts at Idaho State, he decided to move on.  On Thanksgiving Day, 1979, he was traveling north of Pocatello when the driver of a vehicle in the opposite lane lost control on a patch of ice and crashed into Tom.  In a split second, his life abruptly changed.  He sustained multiple injuries and fractures to both legs which resulted in the removal of a kneecap and the amputation of his right foot.

The Outdoor Program went to work putting together the Outdoor Relief Fund, raising money for Tom and for Tom's friend, and fellow climber, Ike Gayfield.  Ike, at the time of Tom's accident, had been strickened with an ailment which was alarmingly similar to multiple sclerosis.  Earl Pond, the Student Union Director, volunteered free use of a guest room for Tom's long recovery.  The ISU Nursing Department also helped with rehabilitative care.

Tom gradually recovered, and working through the Outdoor Program put together the Cooperative Wilderness Handicapped Outdoor Group (C.W. HOG).  C.W. HOG was the first program on a university campus which provided the resources and tools for disabled people to participate, like their able-bodied counterparts, in adventurous outdoor recreational activity.  Away from the university setting, there were other disabled programs in the country which experimented with outdoor activities for disabled people, but Tom took the concept, bounded forward with it, and redefined it. To some, usually sedentary, overly protective individuals in the rehabilitation field, Tom's ideas were outrageous and dangerous heresy, but Tom, finally once again feeling alive and living the active outdoor life that he had enjoyed before his accident, knew what a powerful concept he was working with and brushed aside the naysayers.

Tom insisted that disabled people have the same right to risk as anyone else and, under his leadership, no reasonable outdoor activity was off limits.  Through the supportive structure of the ISU Outdoor Program, Tom organized C.W. HOG river trips on some of the most challenging whitewater rivers of the west, including one journey, the first by a disabled party, down the Colorado River.  C.W. HOG's schedule included--and still includes--climbing, dog sledding, skiing , winter camping, kayaking, canoeing, and sailing trips.  You name it.  The program did it.

In the early 1990s, Tom took a job teaching for the Adventure Education Department at Prescott College in Arizona.  For someone like Tom, it was the perfect job.  He taught skill and theory classes and took groups of students on multi-week outdoor adventures, in and out of the country.  Tom is very much in demand as a speaker, and after his Everest climb, he left his work at Prescott and now makes his living from the lecture circuit.  His legacy, the C.W. HOG program, remains an important part of Idaho State University.  The students of the university are so supportive of the program, that a portion of their student fee money goes to support it.  Tom and his wife Cindy have two daughters.
 

Idaho State University Outdoor Program Links:

whitaker.htm
8/26/98