Lane Scott Huddleston

Lane Scott Huddleston was born on the 21st of April, 1969 in Salem, Oregon to Ruth Nadine and Donald Duane Huddleston. He was the youngest of 5 brothers and sisters. Born nearly 10 years later than his youngest sibling, he was the baby of the family.
When Lane was 4, his parents bought a ranch and moved from Salem to Payette, Idaho. Lane always loved the ranch on Little Willow where he grew up. A typical farm kid, he spent his days roaming the hills and exploring along the creek. He loved to figure out how things worked and there was never a shortage of things to tear apart so that he could figure out how to put it back together. As he got older, his talent was developed further as his dad taught him to work on the equipment and other things on the ranch. He always had some project he was working on, whether a dirt bike, a truck, or one of his favorites: his family’s old Model A. The intrigue did not end with farm equipment, he was also fascinated with the latest technology of the day. Lane was an electronics and computer nerd before being a computer nerd was cool.
After high school, Lane attended BSU where he received an associate degree in Auto Body and worked in this field for a short time before coming back to work with his dad and brother, Blake, on the ranch. He did some custom farming and began his own herd of cows. Before long, his heart became distracted. His mom would notice that he frequently seemed to find some piece or part that was needed, and he was very eager to be the one to drive the 20 miles to town to pick it up. And it always took longer than it should have. Soon she found the reason was he was visiting a girl in town while on his errands.
In May of 1990, Lane began a short courtship with his soon to be wife Joyce. Joyce was a student at TVCC attending the Horse Production Program where Lane’s older brother Blake had his own sweetheart interest in the Instructor of the Horse program. Lane had tagged along with Blake, visiting the horse classes where he initially made Joyce’s acquaintance. The farm work certainly must have suffered that year. By August Lane and Joyce were engaged. Lane and Joyce were married and with his new bride, moved into the little farmhouse up the road from his family’s ranch. The 14th of August, 1991 Bradley Davis was born.
With a little family of his own, Lane realized that he would need to do something more than custom farming to support them. So, he packed up and left Little Willow for the big city. Lane and Joyce and baby Brad, moved to an apartment in Boise where he enrolled at ITT Technical Institute and received an AA in Computer Aided Drafting. In 1993, while expecting the birth of his 2nd child any day, he began his career working for Taylor Engineering. His education on the ranch was the better training for his job. And he quickly left drafting behind and moved on to other work at his job.
Luke Aaron was born June 29th, 1993. Not being satisfied with raising their sons as city kids, Lane and Joyce put a manufactured home on some land and in 1994 finally moved into their own home on Little Willow in Payette. A few years later the family grew some more. November 25th 1997, Ty Jarett was born. A couple of years later, on August 19th 1999, they were delighted by their first daughter Emily Mae.
Lane continued to work in Boise, commuting the 70 miles to work and another 70 home again. At home, work continued. He built an addition on to the house with the help of his dad and the boys, put up what seemed to be miles of fence, and dug many holes to fix many broken pipes; there was always something needing to be built or fixed. A half mile down the road, Lane continued to enjoy visiting with his mom and dad – sitting around the wood stove bouncing ideas and sometimes pipedreams off one another.
He loved having the kids as an excuse to do all the kid stuff he still loved to do: playing Lego, RC trucks and boats, computer games, basketball and baseball games. He was the kids’ biggest fan and sometimes coach, at their ball games. Later he took up the banjo and enjoyed trying to keep up with the kids’ bluegrass music – eventually he just loved to listen to them play together. He spent many afternoons geocaching with the kids, having picnics by the creek, going on camping trips in the summer and skiing in the winter. He bought a few horses over a couple of years and had a great time riding on the hills, with the exception of one particular hunting trip on horseback with Ty. It was the makings of a Pat McManus story. But in the end, everyone but the deer came back in one piece. He broke and trained a colt he called Junior. He loved and was proud of that horse and had a very hard time parting with him later.
9/11 made a profound impact on Lane. And after the invasion of Iraq in 2003, he felt that he had neglected his duty to his country and was resolved to remedy it. So began a new chapter of his life. In 2004, Lane enlisted in the Army National Guard. He celebrated his 35th birthday at bootcamp in Fort Knox, Kentucky. Before graduating from Initial Entry Training, his Guard unit was put on alert for deployment to Iraq. After graduating and leaving Fort Knox, he spent 6 short weeks at home and then was deployed for training. What was expected to be a 6-month deployment for boot camp would become a 2-year deployment to an active combat theater.
While in Bacqubah and later Kirkuk Iraq, Lane’s young faith in Christ would grow. With the encouragement and nearly weekly letters from his beloved late pastor, Rob Zaklan, Lane began a deeper knowledge of and dependance on God. He saw the grace of God at work as the church body surrounded and cared for his family through hard times when he was unable to be there. It was a pivotal experience that he would later say he never would want to do again but he would not trade the influence it had on him.
The transition back to home life after deployment would include a transition to a new job as well. Lane was so grateful to come back to a better job and a boss who he greatly respected. With contractors being hard to find, his gift of figuring things out and making things work, as well as Lane’s tendency to just do it himself, he began learning the field of Controls Programming. Soon he was working on small, then larger programming projects for clients of DC Engineering. Eventually DC had a full Controls department, where both sons Luke and Ty are now working. At DC, Lane worked with many good people he would thereafter call true friends. But after 11 years, he would make one of the hardest decisions he had ever made.
His folks had since passed, the kids were all grown, and the house on Little Willow was nearly empty. Lane and Joyce were ready for something new. While Joyce’s eyes were considering far off places, Lane had his eye on an opportunity a little closer. After weeks and months of praying and weighing the pros and cons, he took a job with Darigold, here in Idaho, as the Automation Manager for the southeastern plants. Lane loved the new and varied challenges his job brought and recently became the Senior Automation Manager. While many people never get a chance to work for even one good man, Lane was blessed with another boss whom he admired, respected, and called a good friend.
With his new job, he decided to leave the long commute behind. Lane and Joyce left the house on Little Willow and moved to Middleton. In Middleton, Lane enjoyed his new life as an empty nester with Joyce. He enjoyed staying home, early morning coffee by the fire, sitting out on the patio and not working on projects. He took up mountain biking and loved to go for walks on the Greenbelt with Joyce and his dog Dietrich, who, like it or not, made it a social activity.
A couple of years ago, after going out with his son Ty on his sailboat, Lane quickly acquired a passion for sailing. And, after Ty got married, he adopted Ty’s sailboat and took it out on all the nearby reservoirs. This past year, in an effort to inspire Joyce to his new love, Lane enrolled them both in an American Sailing Association 101 class in Kemah Bay, Texas. They had a great experience and he was successful in inspiring Joyce’s enthusiasm for sailing. Later they went back for more classes, becoming certified and gaining 3 certifications through ASA 104 - Bareboat Sailing. After completing the classes, Lane was so ecstatic to buy his own 25-foot Hunter sailboat. Most of the weekends this summer were spent sailing on some reservoir with Joyce and the kids. His plan was to sail to the San Juan Islands next year and his dream was to move on to a blue-water sailboat and venture to the Caribbean and maybe an ocean crossing.
On Monday, November 15, 2021 Lane Scott Huddleston, loving husband and father of four children, passed away at the age of 52. He was preceded in death was by his mother, Ruth and his father, Don. Lane is survived by Joyce, his best friend and wife of over 30 years, his 4 children: Brad, Luke, Ty, and Emily as well as his siblings: Rick, Debbie, Rochelle, Blake, and Melissa and many cousins, nieces and nephews. His loss has left a cavernous emptiness for his family. He was a constant companion and an enduring example of unconditional love to his wife, her always dependable rock. His kids will remember his sense of humor, boyish playfulness, his strength of mind, and his ability to fix anything. He left many hopes and unfinished plans here on earth, but he has exchanged them for those that no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined. To God be all Glory.



 

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