Sidney H. Sellers, who died at age 88 in Denver on Saturday, befriended hundreds of hunters and sportsmen through Outdoor Buddies Inc., the backcountry- adventure organization he founded for people with disabilities.
A lifelong outdoorsman, Sel lers led hunter-safety classes for more than 40 years as a volunteer with the Colorado Division of Wildlife. Because he was self-employed, working as a mechanical contractor and engineer, Sellers’ elastic schedule allowed him to teach scores of wildlife-education classes.
In 1984, in collaboration with the DOW and Craig Hospital, Sellers founded Outdoor Buddies, a nonprofit organization that arranges hunting, camping, boating and fishing trips, teaming able-bodied volunteers with disabled participants.
“What Sid did, he’d egg you to go out a little bit further than you thought you could, but he’d also tell you not to bite off more than you can chew,” said Ray Guerra, a former Marine whose legs were amputated after he was wounded in the Vietnam War.
Through Outdoor Buddies, more than 300 participants – “We don’t charge dues, so we don’t have members; we have participants,” Sellers often said – hunted for elk, pheasant and other game and fished throughout Colorado and Kansas.
Though some Outdoor Buddies participants were content to let the able-bodied gut and field-dress their kills, many insisted on tackling the job themselves.
“One thing I learned from Sid is, ‘Give someone a challenge rather than let someone else do something for you,”‘ Guerra said. “Like, I’d be with an able-bodied person who’d pull out his knife to dress the animal I just tagged out. I’d say, ‘No, no!’ and get out of the chair and get to work, up to my elbows in animal guts.”
Sellers was a tall man, with kind eyes and a monk’s fringe of wispy white hair. He threw himself into Outdoor Buddies, taking such a paternal interest that he hated to let anyone else go through the incoming mail.
“If you can breathe, you can hunt,” Sellers liked to say.
Sellers had to amend his motto in 2001, the year a ventilator-dependent quadriplegic Kansas man, using a puff-and-sip adapted trigger, shot a 500-pound cow elk.
“Sid has changed so many lives,” Guerra said. “Consciously or unconsciously, they realize that this goes beyond the hunt or the fishing or the camaraderie. It reinforces the fact that there is more than one way of getting from here to there.”
A memorial service will be held at 10 a.m. Saturday at the Colorado Division of Wildlife headquarters, 6060 Broadway, Denver.
Survivors include Sellers’ wife, Marion, of Denver, and daughters Carolyn “Charley” Galla gher of Denver and Roberta Wheeler of Chugiak, Alaska.
The family suggests memorial donations to the Sid and Marion Sellers Scholarship Fund, Outdoor Buddies Inc., P.O. Box 370283, Denver CO 80237-0283.
Staff writer Claire Martin can be reached at 303-820-1477 or cmartin@denverpost.com.
