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Thanksgiving is opening day for duck-hunting season in Cullan Brown’s part of the world, and he looked forward to the chase as much as his grandmothers’ dressing and homemade rolls. Brown liked his duck wrapped in bacon and grilled with jalapeños for added kick.
No Thanksgiving will ever be the same for the Brown family now that Cullan is gone. The beloved Brown of Eddyville, Kentucky, son of Rodney and Emily and known locally as “the mayor,” died on Aug. 4, less than one year after being diagnosed with osteosarcoma, a form of bone cancer in his left thigh. He was 20.
“The last promise I ever made was that we would continue on with our lives and live it the way he would want us to,” said Brown’s mother Emily, fighting back tears.
Cullan always did have a way of lifting people up.
After Cullan died, the Browns had about 24 hours to decide what they wanted to do in their son’s memory. Cullan, who played a season of college golf at the University of Kentucky before his illness, loved to interact with kids on the range and at tournaments. Only weeks before his cancer diagnosis last year, Cullan competed in the PGA Tour’s Barbasol Championship, where three juniors waited 30 minutes for him to finish interviews to get an autograph. Brown, in turn, spent 20 minutes talking to them.
Creating a GoFundMe page to raise money for Western Kentucky junior golf seemed like a natural cause. The GoFundMe account has raised $27,445 to date and last month’s Cullan Brown Invitational on the Bluegrass Golf Tour raised around $10,000.
Brown’s longtime swing coach and close friend Nick Mills said the field for Cullan’s junior event was stronger than the state high school tournament held just a few weeks prior. The next day, Emily noted, local sportscasters in Paducah held a golf-a-thon that raised close to $7,000. Checks still come to the Browns’ house or the bank in town.
LPGA player Emma Talley, who was like an older sister to Cullan, sits on the board of the foundation along with Mills. She donates money every time she makes a birdie on tour.
“Every day I think about him,” she said at last week’s Pelican Women’s Championship in Belleair, Florida, “and every time I make a birdie I think about him, and I think that will last forever.”
There are a number of ideas floating around regarding how to use the money. They’d like to provide equipment and lessons to juniors struggling to get started in the game. Maybe put Cullan’s name on an academy or build a short-game practice facility.
“Cullan’s life would’ve been full of philanthropy,” Mills said.
When Cullan was in high school, he was tasked with preparing the meat for a Future Farmers of America banquet. A local farmer donated the brisket and Cullan and his friend Jack started mixing up spices to create a signature rub. There wasn’t a morsel of meat left in the buffet line that day. C&J’s Flavor Dust, now a staple of Lyon County, Kentucky, was off and running.
The day the Browns moved Cullan home from college because of his illness, the family packed up all his Flavor Dust supplies in Rubbermaid totes and stored them in the basement.
“We did find his recipe for Flavor Dust,” Emily said of the secret hidden away on Cullan’s phone. They hope to raise funds for Cullan’s foundation by making Flavor Dust in bulk.
Cullan’s love of cooking was legendary among his friends and family. He and Mills had a tradition of texting pictures of their meals to each other to try and guess the restaurant. At one time, Cullan told his mom they’d exchanged 3,000 photos.
Emily doesn’t remember much about the day she buried her son. Much of it remains lost in a fog. Over 700 people signed the visitation book. There was a constant stream of people moving in and out to love on the Brown family for eight hours. They set up a tent with 600 chairs on the Eddyville First Baptist Church lawn for the funeral and sent the overflow across the street to the local school where Emily works.
Cullan told his family “love you too” on his way to bed every night and his disposition rarely changed. Cullan took life in stride, even as chemotherapy battered his body. He never lost his wit.
“I don’t know where he got it,” said Emily. “It was just a God-given blessing that he was that way.”
Earlier this month, the town of Eddyville buried 10-year-old Owen Matthews, who suffered from rhabdomyosarcoma, a type of sarcoma made up of cells that normally develop into skeletal muscles and is more common in children than adults. Matthews was diagnosed just over a month after Cullan and died three months to the day after the Browns lost their son.
Owen had a sister who went to school with Cullan’s 15-year-old sister, Cathryn. When news of Owen’s death spread throughout the school, it was Cathryn who helped so many kids navigate the unspeakable grief.
“I’ve always called her my tough girl,” said Emily.
Earlier this year, Cathryn told her parents that she was giving up basketball to concentrate fully on golf. The family plans to spend the Christmas holiday in Florida while Cathryn competes in a Hurricane Junior Golf Tour event. Talley checks in daily with Cathryn and plays golf with her when she’s back home in Kentucky. Cathryn loves chocolate so Emma’s mom, Jennifer, likes to bring sweet treats over to the Brown’s home.
“(Cathryn) said mom, you know Cullan always told me I could be as good as he was,” said Emily, “or even better if I just set my mind to it and worked as hard as he worked.”
Cathyrn hopes to one day carry a blue-and-white Kentucky golf bag like her brother did. Emily raves about how supportive the women’s golf team at Kentucky has been to Cathryn this past year.
The Kentucky golf program became family during Cullan’s recruitment process.
“I don’t know how we would’ve survived this whole ordeal without them,” Emily said.
The Wildcats opened their fall season in October at the Blessings Collegiate Invitational in Arkansas and at the team qualifier, coaches gave the added incentive that the winner would get to carry Cullan’s bag. Alex Goff won the team qualifier and put Brown’s name plate on his bag for the tournament. Looking down at his former roommate’s name had a way of melting away frustration.
Goff collected his first college title carrying Cullan’s bag in Arkansas, despite playing the wrong ball on the 18th hole. The trophy couldn’t have been more fitting: the figure of a bronzed male golfer with “Blessings” scripted beside it.
“You can’t even write something up like that,” said Goff.
It was an unforgettable moment that overflowed with warmth and joy, just like Cullan.
It was destiny.
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