The answering machine at the home of Don and Barb Scott still has a recording of his voice. He invites callers to leave a message for the couple or for Camp Hodia.

Besides that recording, thousands of young patients at St. Luke’s and children escaping the daily worries of diabetes can also evoke memories of Don Scott. He died in August in a climbing accident at the summit of Gannett Peak in Wyoming. He was 63.

He is survived by his wife, Barb, and his three children.

Scott was a lifelong Idahoan who left his mark around the world.

For more than 30 years, he worked as a pediatric nurse at St. Luke’s Regional Medical Center in Boise. In 1977, Scott founded a summer camp for children with Type 1 diabetes, Camp Hodia.

From the camp’s website: “The tears shed over this loss ‘could fill an ocean.’ But from this day forward — and for generations to come — we celebrate his rich and inspiring life.”

The camp he founded is at the foot of the Sawtooth Mountains and gives kids with diabetes a healthy place to experience the outdoors and feel normal.

But his nursing career and the summer camp just wasn’t enough giving for Scott.

Since the mid-1980s, he had traveled with Northwest Medical Teams to offer medical assistance and succor to those in need around the world. He went to Somalia, Kurdistan, Kenya, Mexico, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Uganda. Family members said he had planned to spend more time doing medical missions during retirement.

“On one of his first trips, he discovered he could stuff a lot of balloons in his pockets, and he could blow up a lot of balloons for kids when he saw them,” said his son, David Scott. “Back then, it was a real discovery for him.”

He was planning a return trip to Uganda to help friends he’d made, David Scott said. “He did have a tremendous desire to help people and a tremendous amount of compassion.”

Scott lived all aspects of his life with passion and embraced hobbies the same way; voracious reading, cooking, theater and outdoor recreation. He was a huge Minnesota Twins and Chicago Bulls fan.

He accomplished a personal goal to swim in every lake in Idaho higher than 10,000 feet in elevation.

That energy took Scott on a mountain climbing adventure in Wyoming.

An experienced mountaineer, he and wife Barb had climbed Mount Kilimanjaro, his sister, Nancy Harris, said.

On the day he died, Don Scott, David Scott and friends “were at the top of the highest peak in Wyoming, walking single file along the narrow summit ridge, following protocol, and helping one another,” his obituary recounts. “Don lost his footing and fell down a snow embankment. His attempt to ‘self-arrest’ was unsuccessful in the soft snow. He made eye contact with his son and said, ‘Goodbye’ as he slipped down the slope and disappeared over the edge.”

It’s still hard for Nancy Harris to accept that her brother is gone. “He really searched out experiences that gave him joy and joy to others.”

Kathleen Kreller: 377-6418