He wasn’t about fanfare.
If you swung by the Adventure Hotel, owned by local businessman Danny Rickaby, you might find him outside shovelling snow or checking in to see how things were going at Empire Coffee. What you wouldn’t find him doing is tooting his own horn.
“You’re not going to replace Danny Rickaby any time soon,” Rickaby’s close friend Cal Renwick told the Star.
“He was a real visionary.”
Rickaby was hospitalized for a massive stroke and died last week. He was 58 years old. Memorial plans are in the works.
Renwick believes people don’t realize the impact Rickaby had on the community under the radar — for instance, he was instrumental in securing the CPR station in Railtown for its revitalization project.
Renwick also worked alongside Rickaby on the Nelson Chamber of Commerce, where he was an active member. Recently Rickaby’s hotel made the New York Times, and he helped attract Triumph Motorcycle Tours to town. Renwick said his interestswere very community-based, and he deeply cared about Nelson and its residents.
“He didn’t take a lot of credit, but thanks to him we are where we are today.”
Renwick first met Rickaby when he moved to Nelson in the early 90s, and he watched as he opened his restaurant Rickaby’s (now Jackson’s Hole) and raised his three sons Addison, Chase and Clay with his wife Joanne.
“He was a great family man, and he raised three really great kids," Renwick said.
“He was certainly his own man, and I respected him.”