Honoring a legacy: Get Kids Outdoors hosts inaugural ice fishing event in memory of Crookston pilot
Jan. 26—CROOKSTON — The untimely death of Adam Parnow in a spray plane crash on June 27, 2023, led his family to channel their grief into a meaningful initiative. Instead of traditional funeral flowers, they urged people to contribute to a
youth fishing scholarship.
An avid outdoorsman who always had time for kids, Adam was 39 years old.
"Whenever I look at an obituary, I look at what the family requests for memorials," his dad, Fred Parnow, said this week. "We pondered it, and our middle son, Matt, said 'Get Kids Outdoors,' and we all resoundingly said 'Yes, that's it.' "
Adam's job as a spray plane pilot took up most of his time in the summer, but he always had time for kids in the winter, Fred Parnow said.
"It wasn't just fishing, it was all outdoor opportunities," said Parnow, a licensed charter boat captain who has a retirement gig as a summer fishing guide at Border View Lodge on Lake of the Woods. "Where he lived in Crookston here, there's a park right across the street and he would go out there and play boot hockey with the kids.
"And that's just one quick story."
Matt Parnow's suggestion for a memorial set the stage for
Get Kids Outdoors-Adam Parnow Memorial Inc.,
a nonprofit the family formed this past fall to preserve Adam's legacy by providing outdoor experiences for young people who might not otherwise have the opportunity.
"We want to continue his name and his legacy, and that's what we're committed to doing," Fred Parnow said. "It's all about maintaining and building his legacy."
Saturday, Feb. 3, that commitment will be realized when the nonprofit hosts its inaugural Get Kids Outdoors ice fishing event on
Island Lake south of Lengby, Minnesota.
The Get Kids Outdoors fishing event is open to 40 young anglers 11 to 15 years old who have minimal ice fishing experience. Bus transportation will be provided from Crookston to Island Lake, where volunteers will host the young anglers in a variety of fish houses for an afternoon of ice fishing.
Participants should check in at the Crookston High School parking lot at 12:30 p.m., and the bus will depart at 1 p.m. for the trip to Island Lake. Kids will fish with qualified adults from 2 to 5 p.m., and the young anglers will rotate between fish houses and setups to experience everything from fishing in deluxe comfort to sitting outside on 5-gallon buckets and freezing "like we all did when we were kids," Parnow said.
Students from the University of Minnesota Crookston's Natural Resources Club will provide a "Classroom on Wheels" during the bus trip, Parnow said, teaching the young anglers about everything from fish ID and aquatic invasive species to hook tying and other outdoor skills. In addition, Scheel's has provided snowshoes for the kids to try on the ice.
"The whole thing is to expose kids to outdoor activities — whatever that is," Parnow said. "The long-term goal would be that they continue these activities into their adult lives."
A meal will be provided at 5 p.m., and the bus will arrive back in Crookston at 7 p.m. All of the young anglers will go home with a new ice fishing rod combo, tackle box, an assortment of lures and other goodies, he said.
As of midweek, 34 of the 40 openings for the excursion had been filled, Parnow said. If there's more than 40 applicants, participants will be selected by drawing and notified by Sunday, Jan. 28.
They chose Island Lake for the excursion because it's known for producing crappies and bluegills, and the kids will be successful, Parnow said. Several people from the Crookston and East Grand Forks areas also have fish houses on the lake and volunteered to host the kids.
"The houses are going to be all set up and ready to go when the kids get there," Parnow said. "When the bus gets out there to Lengby — the ice is thick enough, by the way — two people have offered their Bombardiers to drive the kids out to where these houses are so they have that experience.
"They're going to experience the whole thing. We're going to feed them and get them back to town."
Hopefully, Parnow said, the young anglers also will go home with some fish.
"One of the goals — and I'm pretty sure it's going to happen — is that every kid's going home with a bag of fish," Parnow said. "And there's a person making some seasoning to send home with some instructions so they can share with their family when they get home."
Response to the inaugural Get Kids Outdoors fishing event has been gratifying, Parnow said. American Crystal is providing the bus, and companies such as Clam Corp., Ice Buster Bobbers, Lindy Tackle, Polaris and Scheel's all have donated fishing gear and other items. Other sponsors include Andy Oman State Farm, Crookston Fire Fighters Association, LeBlanc Realty, NAPA-Crookston Welding, Ricard Sod Farm, Sunrich Products, UMC Natural Resource Club, United Valley Bank and Wild Dutchman Sunflower Seeds.
"We've hardly even asked anybody" for donations, Parnow said. "Since I guide, I've gotten to know some people in that network. You talk to these companies, and they're just, 'What do you need? What can we do? How can we help?' "
Looking forward, Parnow says, the hope is to host three or four Get Kids Outdoors events annually. They've applied for a grant through the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources'
No Child Left Inside Grant Program
and should find out if they've received funding in the near future.
It won't be this winter, Parnow says, but future plans also include purchasing a hard-sided fish house to set up on the Red Lake River for families with kids to check out and enjoy the experience of ice fishing.
"We'll buy the bait, they check out the house for the day — or half a day, whatever — and there'd be a bucket of fishing rods there, and they could fish for the day and return the bucket," Parnow said. "It's all about exposing youth to outdoor activities."
There's an old saying that there's good in everything, Parnow says, and Get Kids Outdoors might be the good that came from Adam's tragic death. Whether through elk hunting, ice fishing, snowmobiling or making the effort to share his time with kids, Adam touched a lot of people's lives in his 39 years, his father said.
"We had over 600 cards — memorial cards," after Adam died, Parnow said. "And between the visitation service and funeral service, there were over 700 people there. That's the impact he had in this area and in his work and with his leisure time, and we've got to continue his name."
Through Get Kids Outdoors, they'll do just that.
"We have been so overwhelmed as a family — people in the community and again, different segments of people," Parnow added. "He had his elk hunting group — his hunting buddies network — he had his ice fishing network and he had his snowmobiling network. And we've heard so many stories that we did not even know about our son from people his age in those groups. It's just astounding.
"When he did something, he did it with both feet jumping in."
For more information on the upcoming Get Kids Outdoors fishing event, contact Fred or Beth Parnow at (218) 280-6344 or by email at
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