Pursuing a Boyhood Dream at 38 With Jeremy Claridge
By Jeremiah Kalb
At 15, Jeremy Claridge, 43, thought his career path was all figured out. “I love all things that fly,” he says. “I wanted to be a crop duster.” Growing up farming and ranching in southeast Arizona, he dreamed of farming from the sky after meeting Chuck Stutzman, a new crop duster to the area.
Claridge spotted Stutzman’s plane in the area and tried to track him down but found his wife standing at the edge of a cotton field, flagging for Chuck instead. “She invited me to their house for dinner, and Chuck and I struck up a friendship that proved endearing.”
After high school and volunteer service as a missionary in Missouri for two years, Claridge’s dream of helping feed the world by air progressed as he began working in Emergency Medical Services while earning his helicopter license.
Claridge was on track to realize his boyhood dream. Still, as World Heavyweight Boxing Champion Mike Tyson has famously said, everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth. Claridge's unexpected drop to the canvas came from being diagnosed with a rare liver condition when he was 24.
His dream was grounded temporarily, and he instead began receiving treatment at the Mayo Clinic in Scottsdale, Arizona. “It took me out of the game for a while,” Claridge says.
Meanwhile, he continued his career as a paramedic, advancing into various leadership roles, excelling in his profession, and making a name for himself.
EMS has a dark side, though. While administering life-saving interventions to those tittering on the brink of death, Claridge also collected a closet full of graphic and disturbing images that haunted him around the clock.
Twelve of his seventeen years as a paramedic were spent on the second most violent Indian reservation in the country. “It took a mental toll on me,” he says. Behind his brave facade lay a silent battle as this frontline hero grappled with deep emotional scars.
“After 17 years of this, one late night, I told my wife Rochelle I have to do something different,” Claridge says. Richard Devos described what stood before Claridge: “The only thing that stands between a man and what he wants from life is often merely the will to try it and the faith to believe that it is possible.”
A choice needed to be made. Would Claridge allow faith to rewrite his future? Fortunately for this father of four, the answer was yes. “I prayed to Heavenly Father, ‘I just want to fly. Please open up the way for me to get out of EMS. My work is beating me up mentally and emotionally.’”
Like turning on a light switch to invite light into a dark room, Claridge mustered the faith and courage to pursue the near-impossible. In April 2018, Claridge completed his aerial application certification course at Texas State Technical College in Waco. “This was 100% aerial application for seven weeks,” he says.
Once he knocked out the certification, Claridge returned home to Arizona. The dream was only half complete at this point. Rochelle’s faith was equally stretched to leave her beloved Arizona for Idaho. “It took a massive amount of faith to sell everything and give up our comfortable life,” Claridge says.
Claridge’s focus on crop dusting temporarily shifted as he and Rochelle prepared for the grand opening of their Rexburg restaurant in December 2018 while completing the renovations themselves.
Eventually, in May 2019, he secured a pilot’s seat with Travis Chapple’s crop dusting team in St. Anthony.
Claridge is living his boyhood dream with their successful restaurant on auto-pilot today. “Nowadays, we are called aerial applicators,” he says. With the charm and allure reminiscent of a bygone era, this daring endeavor blends the art of aviation with the science of agriculture to revolutionize how crops are nurtured.
Claridge’s mornings at the airstrip begin at five. After the crew mixes the loads and fills his tank, Claridge is ready to taxi out in his yellow Ayres Thrush plane just as it’s becoming light, and he can barely see. “The Thrush is a turbine aircraft with a jet engine and turboprop. It totes at 1,000 horsepower and can carry up to 500 gallons of product.”
On this Saturday morning, Claridge gripped the worn throttle, feeling the vibrations of the roaring engine. He pushed it forward with a surge of adrenaline, propelling the plane down the runway. As his speed increased and the ground fell away, Claridge’s office turned into a series of interconnected fields spread out like a patchwork quilt, their colors vibrant and alive.
“My first work order was for eight loads across four different fields,” he says. He delivered 24 loads and logged 12.1 hours of flight time on this day. “We are pushing hard right now with potato fertilizing.”
Claridge makes his work look easy, but the job comes with risk. “The job is inherently dangerous,” Claridge says. “When cruising at 140 miles per hour and you’re five feet off the ground, things come up on you pretty quick. Tree lines, powerlines, houses. Things happen really fast. Safety always has to be at the forefront of your mind.”
Part of Claridge’s safety protocol can include an aerial survey, otherwise known as a fly-by, 100 feet above the application zone a few times if he’s unfamiliar with the area. Sometimes wires are impossible to see, so he’s scanning for poles. “You gotta keep your head in the game at all times,” he says.
Claridge remembers his early days of working towards his helicopter instrument rating status and his instructor stopping him mid-sentence when a young, maturing Claridge suggested they go see what the helicopter could do in the desert mountains south of Chandler, Arizona.
“My instructor said that’s all fun, but you need to decide today what kind of pilot you will be. He said you can either be that guy that wants to get on the deck and fly low and fast and take your chances, or you can be a safe pilot who gets to go home every night to his family.”
That lesson has stuck with Claridge, so he flies safe and calculated.
With risk comes rewards, and Claridge sees the fruits of his labor daily. “I don’t think the average person fully understands the impact of agriculture on our everyday lives,” he says. “The amount of food our country produces is astounding. If we don’t produce it, the world will starve.”
Claridge points out that some ask why we don’t go organic. “You can’t feed the world organically,” he says. “As much as we’d all love that, it’s impossible with the amount of food the world consumes.”
He savors the fact that he plays a role in feeding the world. Just like a painter carefully applies strokes of color to create a masterpiece, Claridge, an airborne artist, navigates the skies, expertly releasing precise amounts of fertilizers, pesticides, and seeds, nurturing our crops from above so that we have food to put on our tables.
Claridge and his family recently vacationed in Savannah, Georgia, where he spotted the burger joint Five Guys across the street. He told his wife he’d be right back. He couldn’t resist the urge to poke his head in and read the sign. TODAY’S POTATOES ARE FROM: ST. ANTHONY, ID, BRAXTON CRAPO FARMS.
“I sprayed those potatoes,” he said to himself. Knowing this makes getting up at four in the morning rewarding for this farm boy from southeast Arizona.
By Jeremiah Kalb
At 15, Jeremy Claridge, 43, thought his career path was all figured out. “I love all things that fly,” he says. “I wanted to be a crop duster.” Growing up farming and ranching in southeast Arizona, he dreamed of farming from the sky after meeting Chuck Stutzman, a new crop duster to the area.
Claridge spotted Stutzman’s plane in the area and tried to track him down but found his wife standing at the edge of a cotton field, flagging for Chuck instead. “She invited me to their house for dinner, and Chuck and I struck up a friendship that proved endearing.”
After high school and volunteer service as a missionary in Missouri for two years, Claridge’s dream of helping feed the world by air progressed as he began working in Emergency Medical Services while earning his helicopter license.
Claridge was on track to realize his boyhood dream. Still, as World Heavyweight Boxing Champion Mike Tyson has famously said, everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth. Claridge's unexpected drop to the canvas came from being diagnosed with a rare liver condition when he was 24.
His dream was grounded temporarily, and he instead began receiving treatment at the Mayo Clinic in Scottsdale, Arizona. “It took me out of the game for a while,” Claridge says.
Meanwhile, he continued his career as a paramedic, advancing into various leadership roles, excelling in his profession, and making a name for himself.
EMS has a dark side, though. While administering life-saving interventions to those tittering on the brink of death, Claridge also collected a closet full of graphic and disturbing images that haunted him around the clock.
Twelve of his seventeen years as a paramedic were spent on the second most violent Indian reservation in the country. “It took a mental toll on me,” he says. Behind his brave facade lay a silent battle as this frontline hero grappled with deep emotional scars.
“After 17 years of this, one late night, I told my wife Rochelle I have to do something different,” Claridge says. Richard Devos described what stood before Claridge: “The only thing that stands between a man and what he wants from life is often merely the will to try it and the faith to believe that it is possible.”
A choice needed to be made. Would Claridge allow faith to rewrite his future? Fortunately for this father of four, the answer was yes. “I prayed to Heavenly Father, ‘I just want to fly. Please open up the way for me to get out of EMS. My work is beating me up mentally and emotionally.’”
Like turning on a light switch to invite light into a dark room, Claridge mustered the faith and courage to pursue the near-impossible. In April 2018, Claridge completed his aerial application certification course at Texas State Technical College in Waco. “This was 100% aerial application for seven weeks,” he says.
Once he knocked out the certification, Claridge returned home to Arizona. The dream was only half complete at this point. Rochelle’s faith was equally stretched to leave her beloved Arizona for Idaho. “It took a massive amount of faith to sell everything and give up our comfortable life,” Claridge says.
Claridge’s focus on crop dusting temporarily shifted as he and Rochelle prepared for the grand opening of their Rexburg restaurant in December 2018 while completing the renovations themselves.
Eventually, in May 2019, he secured a pilot’s seat with Travis Chapple’s crop dusting team in St. Anthony.
Claridge is living his boyhood dream with their successful restaurant on auto-pilot today. “Nowadays, we are called aerial applicators,” he says. With the charm and allure reminiscent of a bygone era, this daring endeavor blends the art of aviation with the science of agriculture to revolutionize how crops are nurtured.
Claridge’s mornings at the airstrip begin at five. After the crew mixes the loads and fills his tank, Claridge is ready to taxi out in his yellow Ayres Thrush plane just as it’s becoming light, and he can barely see. “The Thrush is a turbine aircraft with a jet engine and turboprop. It totes at 1,000 horsepower and can carry up to 500 gallons of product.”
On this Saturday morning, Claridge gripped the worn throttle, feeling the vibrations of the roaring engine. He pushed it forward with a surge of adrenaline, propelling the plane down the runway. As his speed increased and the ground fell away, Claridge’s office turned into a series of interconnected fields spread out like a patchwork quilt, their colors vibrant and alive.
“My first work order was for eight loads across four different fields,” he says. He delivered 24 loads and logged 12.1 hours of flight time on this day. “We are pushing hard right now with potato fertilizing.”
Claridge makes his work look easy, but the job comes with risk. “The job is inherently dangerous,” Claridge says. “When cruising at 140 miles per hour and you’re five feet off the ground, things come up on you pretty quick. Tree lines, powerlines, houses. Things happen really fast. Safety always has to be at the forefront of your mind.”
Part of Claridge’s safety protocol can include an aerial survey, otherwise known as a fly-by, 100 feet above the application zone a few times if he’s unfamiliar with the area. Sometimes wires are impossible to see, so he’s scanning for poles. “You gotta keep your head in the game at all times,” he says.
Claridge remembers his early days of working towards his helicopter instrument rating status and his instructor stopping him mid-sentence when a young, maturing Claridge suggested they go see what the helicopter could do in the desert mountains south of Chandler, Arizona.
“My instructor said that’s all fun, but you need to decide today what kind of pilot you will be. He said you can either be that guy that wants to get on the deck and fly low and fast and take your chances, or you can be a safe pilot who gets to go home every night to his family.”
That lesson has stuck with Claridge, so he flies safe and calculated.
With risk comes rewards, and Claridge sees the fruits of his labor daily. “I don’t think the average person fully understands the impact of agriculture on our everyday lives,” he says. “The amount of food our country produces is astounding. If we don’t produce it, the world will starve.”
Claridge points out that some ask why we don’t go organic. “You can’t feed the world organically,” he says. “As much as we’d all love that, it’s impossible with the amount of food the world consumes.”
He savors the fact that he plays a role in feeding the world. Just like a painter carefully applies strokes of color to create a masterpiece, Claridge, an airborne artist, navigates the skies, expertly releasing precise amounts of fertilizers, pesticides, and seeds, nurturing our crops from above so that we have food to put on our tables.
Claridge and his family recently vacationed in Savannah, Georgia, where he spotted the burger joint Five Guys across the street. He told his wife he’d be right back. He couldn’t resist the urge to poke his head in and read the sign. TODAY’S POTATOES ARE FROM: ST. ANTHONY, ID, BRAXTON CRAPO FARMS.
“I sprayed those potatoes,” he said to himself. Knowing this makes getting up at four in the morning rewarding for this farm boy from southeast Arizona.
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Jeremiah Kalb Writing, LLC
1846 1st Street, Suite 324, Idaho Falls, ID 83401