Standing at the top of Pebble Creek Ski Area was the youngest of three, Ashlyn LaMont, crying and scared to ski down.

From the bottom of the hill, her dad, Lynn VanEvery told her: “I can’t come up and get you. The only way to go is down. You just gotta do it.”

She eventually did. In that moment it showed how Lynn VanEvery lived his life — a man of not many words, but impactful and powerful ones, with the purpose of helping people.

“If you were ever doing something, he’d show you, and then he’d make you do it,” Ashlyn said. “Instead of just taking over and doing stuff, he always had the patience to make sure that you knew what you were doing and could do it the right way.”

VanEvery was a man who wore many hats.

The father, grandfather, coach, referee and much more made an impact on everyone he came into contact with. VanEvery died suddenly on June 4, 2026, at 62 years old.

VanEvery was born in Rupert on Feb. 1, 1964. It was there he discovered his love for sports, especially baseball. He was a part of the first state championship team before going on to play college ball at the College of Southern Idaho.

He played two years for CSI, where during his sophomore year, he helped lead his team to a JUCO World Series championship. He then played one year for Oklahoma City University before transferring to the University of Arkansas for his senior year, solidifying himself as a die-hard Arkansas Razorback baseball fan.

Then in 1986, he played one season for the Salt Lake Trappers of the rookie-level Pioneer League before hanging up his cleats.

That same year he married his high school sweetheart, Sherry, on June 14, 1986, and from there his life changed.

Sherry and Lynn shared almost 40 years of marriage and raised three kids — a son, Jordan VanEvery, and two daughters, Breanne Robinson and Ashlyn LaMont. They also had four grandchildren.

VanEvery was a sports dad through and through. He even became a volleyball fan.

Breanne and Ashlyn followed in his footsteps and became athletes — however, not in baseball, but in volleyball, a sport the family joked he knew nothing about.

Despite his lack of knowledge, he was at every game he could make, whether in Reed Gym or on the road, sitting in the stands with his glasses on, scrolling through the stats, learning the game his daughters loved.

“He was always sitting there with us,” Breanne said. “Even though he didn’t know much about volleyball, he knew a lot about sports and a lot about life. He was one of my biggest sports mentors, but also a life mentor.”

For Jordan, he remembered his dad through a different lens: the outdoors, one of his favorite passions.

VanEvery loved the outdoors — hunting, hiking, camping, fishing. You name it, he loved doing it. With Jordan, a lot of their time was spent on hunting trips.

Good or bad, the memories are what Jordan cherished about his dad the most.

“It’s hard to boil down a lifetime of memories and experiences,” he said. “I have a lot of memories about good hunting trips, and then hunting trips that were challenging. Whether it was freezing our butts off at night or walking around miles and miles for days and not seeing any animals. There was always something about just being out there with him.”

Those trips didn’t stop when his three kids grew up. They always made it a point to get out in nature, with hiking trips all over Idaho, including Mount Borah, which Lynn had climbed several times. A picture of the peak still hangs in the family home.

His free thinking and adventurous ambition in life were what his family loved most about him.

That ambition led him to trying new things, and after taking a long break from baseball, the game never left him. In 2018 he became an assistant coach at Highland High School, doing what he loved to do and inspiring the next generation to do the same.

Head coach Christian Colonel first heard of VanEvery in 1999, when Colonel was a high school basketball player and Lynn was refereeing. After a long hiatus and a year of convincing, he joined the coaching staff.

“He’s one of those coaches that doesn’t say much, doesn’t need to say much, but when he speaks, you listen,” Colonel said.

“He cared about the kids, on and off the field. Whatever he was doing throughout the day, wherever his feet were, he was all in. If anybody could learn from Lynn, it’s just — whatever you’re doing, be all in. Don’t half-ass it.”

For Colonel, he remembers Lynn the most for their road trips together.

In the summer, on a multiple-hour car ride, it was just the open road and the two of them. Instead of being on their phones or the radio, they talked — about life, baseball, the land they were driving through, anything they could come up with.

He didn’t just lose a coach. He lost a friend, someone who cared about people for who they were.

“There’s not very many people like Lynn VanEvery in the world,” he said.

For his family, what he left behind goes past the titles.

Alongside all of his other duties, he was a public servant, working for the Idaho Department of Environmental Quality for 30 years, and his impact on the community was felt throughout.

“My biggest thing was that the reason so many people showed up at his celebration of life was because that’s the impact that he had on our community,” Sherry said. “He had a big impact on the community, and I just think that if we all just took some of his qualities. Our community, it’s a great community to raise kids, and that showed in everybody that came to support him.”

The biggest thing VanEvery gave was the lesson of giving back. With him working at DEQ and Sherry a retired schoolteacher, they passed that down to their kids, who have taken the VanEvery DNA and applied it to their own lives.

Ashlyn and Breanne became schoolteachers as well, and Jordan a firefighter. Serving and giving back that he started will live on through them.

“He was always there to help people whenever anybody would need something. He was the first person to be there to help people,” Jordan said. “I always knew that I could call my dad and he would be right there to do whatever. He was always going to follow through with whatever he said he was going to do. If I tell you I’m going to do something, I’m going to be there, and I’m going to try to do the right thing, even when nobody’s looking.”