A GRIZZLY ENCOUNTER

The bear had its jaws clamped on his friend. There was only one thing to do: tackle.

- Ryan Hockensmith

A good friend never lets his buddy step in bear scat.

So when Brady Lowry stumbled upon a fresh pile back in the fall of 2022, deep in the thick brush of the Wyoming wilderness near Yellowstone, he turned his head and alerted Kendell Cummings. Those were almost his last words.

The two wrestlers at Northwest College in Powell, Wyoming, had known each other for only about a month and a half, but they'd become fast friends. Mowry, who had been a National Junior College Athletic Association AllAmerican as a freshman, was back on the team after taking a year off from college. Cummings was a hardworking sophomore who hadn't cracked the lineup yet.

There's something about being wrestling practice partners that can forge lifelong friendships in six weeks. Pushing each other on 5-mile runs, sweating and bleeding all over the place, either twisting your friend into a pretzel or getting pretzeled ... it's violence and then forgiveness, for hours on end, and that can weld two people together almost instantly. That's what it had done for Lowry and Cummings.

So they started hanging out after practice. They both loved the outdoors, and as wrestling season started up, Lowry mentioned how much money he makes "shed hunting." Shed hunting involves scouring mountain trails, looking for antlers that elk, moose, mule deer and other male animals lose once a year. A big set of antlers can be worth $200. A good day of shed hunting can net a college kid $500, and today, Oct. 15, was off to a great start.

They had gone out with two other Northwest College wrestlers, Gus Harrison and Orrin Jackson, and spent the 45-minute drive teasing Harrison for wearing a bright red sweatshirt instead of camo or dark clothing. They kept telling him he was going to be a blinking food sign for any aggressive wildlife in the area.