Dick Hiley St. Jude Bass Classic is casting a legacy of hope in Minnesota

On a stretch of the Mississippi near Wabasha, Minnesota, the current runs a little stronger.  

Not because of the water — but because of the people.  

Each May, boats arrive for the Dick Hiley St. Jude Bass Classic benefiting St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital®. It looks like a fishing tournament. But just beneath, something deeper stirs: hope.  

John Stears remembers when hope was just a ripple.  

“It started simple in 1999,” he said. “Guys would fish, maybe toss a little to St. Jude. Fundraising wasn’t the point.”  

But one angler, Dick Hiley, thought it could be. He wrote letters, asked for donations and nudged the event toward something bigger. After he passed away in 2004, the tournament took his name.  

Hiley was part of a dedicated group of early believers — including Rick Pelletier, Scott Bonnema, John Stears and many others — who helped shape what the tournament would become. That first year, they raised $11,000.  

Their shared belief turned a local tradition into a lasting mission. But by 2008, the momentum slowed. Numbers stalled. The mission nearly drifted away.  

That’s when Stears and the bass club stepped in.  

“We pretty much ran the thing,” he said. “Looking back, I think we salvaged it.”  

By 2015, a new wave arrived. Corey Waller, then committee chair, tied starting positions to fundraising — a move that honored the mission and reignited the competition.  

“You want to win; you want to get out early,” Stears said. “It used to be luck. Now? Raise the most, you’re boat number one.”  

Waller and others carried the torch forward — anglers who didn’t just show up but showed heart.  

There’s Chad Christie and Trevor Adams, who turned their hometown of Cadott, Wisconsin, into a hub of grassroots fundraising. The Bauer brothers — Josh, Jeff and Jared — bring a steady, team-first approach that reflects years of fishing and fundraising together. And then there’s Aaron LaRocque and Joe Hall, consistent performers whose quiet dedication has made their team a fixture at the top of the leaderboard.  

Together, they’ve helped the tournament grow not just in size, but in spirit.  

In 2023, the tournament crossed a line Stears never imagined: $1 million raised in a single year.  

Stears, a retired X-ray tech, knows what that means. “You see what it takes to do real research,” he said. “You see the need.”  

The weather doesn’t always cooperate. “One year it snowed sideways,” Stears said.

But Stears always returns, casting into the same waters, year after year — knowing each cast sends a ripple of hope downstream, all the way to St. Jude in Memphis, Tennessee.  

Making waves

The ripples of hope swirl forward, finding their way through unexpected places.

When Matt Pangrac started talking about St. Jude on his Bass Talk Live podcast, listeners began reaching out — sharing stories of nieces, nephews, neighbors touched by pediatric cancer. He’s not the type to cry, but some of those stories…  

“You never know what’s going on in someone’s life,” Pangrac said.  

His podcast is a digital campfire for the bass fishing world — a place for baits, techniques and now, something more.  

Pangrac began fishing the Dick Hiley tournament and started giving airtime to St. Jude. 

He knows it’s not why most people tune in. They come for crankbaits, not cancer. But some shows, he said, just need to be done.  

He and others have helped open doors across the bass fishing industry. The Dick Hiley tournament is now one of the sport’s largest events.  

But even as it grew, the mission stayed personal.  

In early 2024 came the news that his friend Miles, a fellow angler and fishing influencer, had a baby girl — Rylee — newly diagnosed with cancer and referred to St. Jude.  

Pangrac talked about her on the show. In that moment, it all crystallized.  

They were fighting for one of their own.

Deep in the current

Miles was on the water in Florida, prepping for a tournament, when the call came that his only child, Rylee, had cancer.  

He dropped to his knees on the boat and cried.  

Then he drove — hours of highway and heartbreak — repeating the thought: We’re going to do this. But it’s going to be rough.  

Neuroblastoma. A word that doesn’t belong in a baby’s life.  

Rylee was referred to St. Jude.  

“As soon as we got there, we were filled with hope,” Miles said. “The gentleness of the care stands above everything else we’ve experienced.”  

The family has never received a bill from St. Jude for treatment, travel, housing or food.   

“It gave me light at the end of the tunnel,” he said. “I could keep providing for my family.”  

As Rylee began treatment, Miles heard about the Dick Hiley tournament. He formed a team and raised $6,000.  

“You could just feel that everybody was there not for a tournament but for a greater cause,” he said.  

This year, they raised $22,000. 

Rylee has completed her treatment, and she is thriving. 

She loves her corgi, Doppler. Loves books. Loves being read to by the parents who thought they’d be her rock — and found out she was theirs.

Hooked on helping

John Wixson was listening to Bass Talk Live when he heard about the Dick Hiley tournament. He immediately turned to his fishing buddy, Zach Kremer.

“He was like, ‘Holy crap, we’ve got to do this,’” Kremer said.

As employees of Entegrity Energy Partners, an energy services, sustainability, and solar development company, Kremer and Wixson have helped ensure effective and efficient design, construction, and operation of facilities across the St. Jude campus — places like the Inspiration4 Advanced Research Center and The Domino’s Village patient housing. 

Now, they had a chance to do more. So, they signed up. Raised money.

When the time came, they hitched the boat and drove eight hours from Kansas City.

“We’re all here for the same reason: to raise money for St. Jude,” Kremer said.

For Kremer, the Saturday-night banquet with its stories of St. Jude families is a highlight.

“I’ve never seen 150 grown men try so hard not to cry,” he joked.

A married father of two, he imagines the St. Jude families every time he reviews plans or walks a site. St. Jude has become a “passion project” through his work and now fishing.

“If we can help the researchers start their work one day sooner,” he said, “maybe they find cures one day sooner. That’s what drives us.”

A fishing story

So many stories eddy the Mississippi riverbank, of the people who fish the Dick Hiley tournament and why they come.

Rick Pelletier helped pioneer the tournament. A competitor by nature, he fished alongside his best friend, Scott Bonnema. Rick believed in the cause, especially after touring St. Jude. 

“Rick was awestruck,” his wife, Drea Pelletier, said, at how St. Jude took care of the entire family.

In 2021, Rick died from cardiac arrest, leaving behind a devastated family, including his 10-year-old son, Alex.

Rick’s absence echoed through the tournament. Bonnema considered stepping away. But Drea, still navigating her own grief, offered a suggestion: “What if you fish with Alex?”

“I can’t think of a better way to honor Rick,” Bonnema said.

Last year, they fished together. This year, Alex, now 14, partnered with another of Rick’s closest friends, Lanny Isensee. On the water, Alex hears stories about his dad — the man he’s still getting to know.

“The time they spend with him — it’s like giving Alex time with his dad,” Drea said. 

In every fundraising call, in every dollar he raises, Alex is honoring his dad and becoming one of the new generation of anglers carrying the tournament’s legacy forward.

Alex is determined to make his dad proud. This year, he and Isensee raised $24,000 for St. Jude.

Now, when Drea walks into the tournament banquet, she feels it: Rick’s spirit in every hug, in every offer of help. In Alex, too.

In this tournament family, love doesn’t ripple outward and vanish. It doesn’t lose energy as it spreads. It converges. Not a wave breaking, but a tide rising — a force lifting everyone it touches. 

That’s why, even after 27 years, the Dick Hiley St. Jude Bass Classic feels like it’s just beginning. Because every generation — past, present, future — is still showing up.