Meet Gary: A Remote H&NP Member

Kenny Salvini
Jun 2
2 min read

Updated: Jun 3

Three people smiling outdoors next to a truck. Two are in wheelchairs. Background shows cabins, trees, and an overcast sky. Casual, warm mood. — 79-year-old Gary Williams – pictured here outside his home near St. Regis, Montana with Kenny & Claire Salvini – has become a regular participant met our weekly virtual gatherings.

The Salvini family got a chance to connect with arguably one of our most remote members of the H&NP community a couple weeks back on our road trip in The White Whale to visit one of Claire's best friends in Hamilton, Montana over Memorial Day weekend. As we snaked our way down from Lookout Pass on I-90 just outside of the Idaho Panhandle, we began to see the roadside littered with billboards boasting the community of St. Regis as home to "The Best Huckleberry Milkshake." Although we'd heard about the famed shakes from multiple friends once they learned of our destination, we were much more interested in one of the 313 residents who lived just outside of town named Gary Williams.

The self-described "upper middle-aged" Vietnam veteran was injured back in 2020 when a tree fell on him while logging at the age of 75, and he found his way to us through our partnership with the Northwest Paralyzed Veterans Association in February 2024. We sent him one of our adaptive water bottles and connected him with another one of our more celebrated seasoned wheelers in Dan Ohlson, and let the proverbial sparks fly. Since that early connection, Gary has become a staple at our weekly Virtual Gatherings, and his dry sense of humor has an endearing quality that has a way of lifting the spirits of everyone in attendance.

Once Claire and I realized that Gary was directly on the way of our pending road trip, we made sure to carve out time for a quick visit. As we turned off one of the old logging roads where the pavement ended, we found Gary's log cabin tucked on the hillside, and soon the mythical man came rolling out in his manual wheelchair fixed up with knobby mountain bike tires and wearing his classic logger's overalls. Within minutes he was giving us the verbal tour of the grounds, regaling us with tales of how he'd built the cabin with secondhand timbers and subsequently modified it for pseudo accessibility after his injury, all while his moose of a puppy, Spot, did hot laps around the new visitors.

Though the visit was held relatively short due to the truncated timeline of our road trip, the connection was no less meaningful, probably because of the bond we had built up over countless digital connections over the weeks and months before we stopped by. It's a testament of the overarching philosophy we've cultivated as part of H&NP's mission to connect and empower individuals with spinal injuries and other mobility disabilities; it doesn't matter who you are, where you are, or how you are affected by one of these challenges, our community will welcome you.

When we parted ways with Gary, it was not goodbye forever, for we knew we'd see each other again online. We will also get to track his progress in the virtual portion of this month's 5K for Today – his second straight year participating virtually!