Kyle James Brown

October 6, 1977 – August 26, 2021

Posted

SUTHERLIN, Ore. – How do you write an obituary for your child? With great difficulty.

Our beloved son Kyle James Brown died of COVID on Aug 26, 2021. He was born on Oct. 6, 1977 to Diane and Dick Brown in Corvallis.

When Kyle was four, the family moved to Wyoming where they lived in Glenrock, Rock Springs and lastly Wheatland where Kyle attended school from the fourth grade through high school, graduating in 1996!

Kyle’s first job was delivering the Casper Star-Tribune newspaper, but at age 14 he took a job as a dishwasher at the Brown Derby restaurant beginning a lifelong friendship with the Jenkins family.

I should have known when I found him at not quite 18 months old with a butter knife, he had gotten out of the kitchen trying to disassemble his crib that he would someday be a motor head. And so, he was! He put his first streetcar together when he was just 15, before he could even legally drive.

When he was 16 years old, he began working for Drube manufacturing, in Wheatland, doing the things he loved to do, machining, welding, and at home working on cars

As a senior in high school, he built his first stock car and raced it the night before he graduated from high school. I asked him the next day if he wasn’t just a little afraid being in the car on the racetrack for the first time and he said, no, mom, I felt like I’d come home,”

After three years of racing in Cheyenne he sold his stock car for enough to move to Charlotte, North Carolina where he quickly got a job on the pit crews in the Nascar truck racing series. Working among other places for Joe Gibbs racing on Coy Gibbs truck racing team.

Kyle was always looking for the new adventure, the new challenge so after working in Nascar he took on a number of other jobs, acquiring many new skills. And living in Colorado, Arizona, Oregon and Texas.

Finally, several years ago he began building turbo systems for racing pickups and selling them online. Five years ago, he moved home to Oregon, where his parents, grandparent’s younger sister and brother, and many cousins already lived. He loved to be with his family

He had his own shop in Sutherlin and built all of his systems himself. He was a stickler for details! His shop became a meeting place for family and his car friends.

He developed many, many friendships in the car community in the Roseburg, Sutherlin area. And around the country through his business.

We always said Kyle crammed 10 years of living into every year he lived! Perhaps he knew something we didn’t!

His family are heartbroken at his passing. His sisters, Sheri Silvers of Louisiana, and Kate Brown of Oakland, his brothers, Dave Brown of Alaska and Matthew Brown of Oakland will miss him every day until we are all together again!

No services are planned at this time. Later we will have a BBQ at Kyles shop for all of his friends and family. if you want to do something to honor Kyle, get vaccinated if you have not already been vaccinated! Don’t let your family go through this!