A memorial service will celebrate the life of Caleb Thoele, a Medford business owner and youth coach, on Saturday, June 8, at 1 p.m. at Mountain Church, 1 East Main St., in downtown Medford. A former college athlete and wildland firefighter, Caleb, 52. died Sunday, May 5 at his home after an 18-month battle with pancreatic cancer.

An adventurous life in which sports and outdoor work were key elements began with his birth on April 17, 1972, in Newport, Ore. Ten days later he met his adoptive parents, Mike and Sandy Thoele, who welcomed him into their Junction City, Ore., home and introduced him to sisters Tiffan and Leith.

Growing up, he was a three-sport athlete and football MVP at Junction City High School. During long, hot summers he worked as a field hand, packing heavy irrigation pipe through tall corn and other crops. After his JCHS graduation he headed to Southern Oregon State College and claimed a spot on the school's football roster. At his death he still held the record for the longest field goal in school history, a 51-yarder booted in a 1995 game with Western Oregon University.

During and after his college years, Caleb worked as a U.S. Forest Service firefighter. He spent an initial two summers on a Forest Service crew at Oakridge, Ore. Then he landed a position on the elite Union Hotshot squad based in LaGrande, Ore. With that front-line crew he spent five summers traveling the West on fire campaigns that ranged from the Mexican border to central Canada.

On occasion he and his crewmates were transported to fires by small boat or helicopter. Those remote bivouacs in rugged mountain country ran as long as 21 days. Grueling initial attack shifts of non-stop manual labor sometimes spanned 48 hours.

By the end of his firefighting years, Caleb had settled in Medford. He and Kim Jones of Medford had met on the Southern Oregon campus. They were married on Aug. 19, 2000. In the following years, their family grew with the arrival of a son, Demetrius, and a daughter, Maleyah.

Caleb found work in the Medford landscaping industry and settled into a job with veteran Medford landscaper Rich Stanfield. In 11 years under Stanfield's tutelage, Caleb's skills and confidence grew. In 2014, with his boss's encouragement and nudging, he stepped out on his own and launched Thoele Landscape and Irrigation. "It was time for him," Stanfield says. "Customers loved him. Whether it was coaching softball or working on our projects, he was a leader. People wanted to follow him."

The business he founded grew steadily over the following ten years. The landscapes he designed and constructed over that decade are artistry at ground level.

Through those same years Caleb became active on the youth coaching scene in the Rogue Valley. From 2006 to 2008 he served on the Crater High School football staff in Central Point, Ore., working with the team's kickers. Later, as a parent volunteer, he helped coach a boys' baseball team that included son Demetrius.

When daughter Maleyah took up softball, he assisted in coaching as a parent volunteer during her middle school years. By the time she was playing for South Medford High School, he was the team's designated assistant coach. In the summer "off-seasons," he became the head coach of a travel team composed of largely the same roster of high school players.

Three days after Caleb's death the South Medford softball team played cross-town rival North Medford. The South team wore ribbons of purple as a mourning tribute to their departed coach. In a moving gesture, the North players took the field wearing the same adornment.

Caleb is survived by his wife Kim, son Demetrius and daughter Maleyah, all of Medford; parents Mike and Sandy Thoele of Cheshire, Ore.; sisters Tiffan Thoele of Klamath Falls and Leith Thoele of Portland; mother-in-law Linda Jones of Medford; and an array of aunts, uncles and cousins.