: A life well-lived. Sounds like he paddled smart; he died of fate, not poor
: judgement. I couldn't imagine a better way to go.

: One could argue that he may have been resuscitated had he not been on the
: river. If he were home eating potato chips and watching tv; the heart
: attack could have happened sooner. I hope his wife and family are at peace
: with their loss.

: Shawn

He died doing what his truly loved. He was a Professor here at St Thomas and loved to be on the water. The article in the Pioneer Press was well written.

Posted on Tue, May. 20, 2003

He ran the rivers and reached for the stars
BY MARA H. GOTTFRIED
Pioneer Press

James E. Rada always thought he would die on a river.

After all, that's where he spent much of his life as a pioneer of white-water kayaking in Minnesota.

That his death was on a river and that it was a river he especially loved is some comfort, said his wife, Karen Jensen.

Rada, of Stillwater, had a heart attack and died while kayaking the Presque Isle River in Michigan's Upper Peninsula on Saturday. He was 52.

Rada was a man of more than one passion. He stuck by his convictions: Worried about the environment, he waited until his late 30s to learn to drive — and still felt guilty. He connected with his students and shared his love of astronomy with them. He read Henry David Thoreau and followed the philosophy that one has to understand the essence of life to live life to the fullest.

"He was a deeply sensitive person," said Tom Aluni, a friend of Rada's for 30 years. "He knew what he wanted in life and he went after it. What he wanted was to be happy as much as he could, and I think he was."

Rada was born May 2, 1951, and grew up in Oakdale. He never wanted to be anything but an astronomer — his first memory was his mother holding him as they watched a solar eclipse, Jensen said Monday.

Rada, who was a National Merit Scholar, completed his undergraduate and graduate work at the University of Minnesota.

He went on to teach astronomy and physics at the University of St. Thomas and University of Wisconsin-Stout.

In the late 1960s, Rada read a book about Canadian kayakers and found their adventures so amazing he ordered his own kayak. While attending the University of Minnesota, he and others interested in white-water kayaking used a swimming pool to practice, and Rada taught others there, including Aluni.

Although white-water kayaking was known on the East Coast, it didn't really make its way to the Midwest until the early 1970s, Aluni said. Rada was part of a group that brought boats to Minnesota, learned how to build them to withstand rapids and discovered how to run the rivers — then passed it all along to others, Aluni said.

"A lot of people are boating today because of Jim's influence and his love of kayaking," he said.

By the late 1980s, he was recognized as a master paddler — a magazine named him one of the top 10 white-water paddlers in the country, Jensen said.

In the winter, Rada would snowshoe on rivers, especially along Lake Superior's North Shore, to explore whether they would be good for kayaking, and then he would tell others, Jensen said.

It was Rada's analytical mind that made him adept at seeing a complicated river and "determining whether it was runnable, and then he would often be the first one to go down it," Aluni said.

But as much as he kayaked, he said his bravest moment was taking a stand during the Vietnam War, Jensen said. He felt the war was wrong, she said, and though he could have taken a student deferment, he didn't think it was fair to do so. Instead, he resisted the draft and was sent to jail for three or four months, Jensen said.

"He fought the system because he felt like it was the thing to do for his country at the time," she said. "Throughout his life, he continued to be very outspoken and not afraid to back issues important to him."

That might have been why Rada's students and others who met him connected with him, said Marty Johnston, chairman of St. Thomas' physics department.

"He didn't respond to peer pressure, he responded to what he thought was right, and that resonated with people," he said.

"In a world where things are often fake, he was true."

Rada is also survived by his parents, Chuck and Della, of Oakdale; his sister, Rojean, of St. Paul, and a brother, Dick, of Sacramento, Calif.

Arrangements are pending, but the family expects visitation to be Thursday night. A memorial service is planned for 11 a.m. on Friday at Grace Lutheran Church, 1730 Old Hudson Road in St. Paul.

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Mara H. Gottfried can be reached at mgottfried@pioneerpress.com or (651) 228-5262.