Obituary of Russell Scott Foose

Stubborn, passionate, funny, independent, and busy are a few words that described the amazing person Russ was.

Russell Scott Foose was born March 25^th, 1961, in Greeley, Colorado to Robert and Chardell Foose. Growing up Russ was always one for adventures. At age 10 he was learning how to ride motorcycles and from that moment on his love for them grew. He would ride around the neighborhood with his two brothers and his friends. You could also catch him riding go karts. If Russ wasn’t throwing dirt on his bike, you could catch him fishing with his family. Russ was a part of the Greeley West High School graduating class of 1979. After graduating high school, he soon found a job with Roche Construction where he realized he had an excitement for concrete work. This job led him into his next career with New Horizon Builders where concrete forming and flat work became his day-to-day job. Russ loved this type of work to the point where he made it his yearly goal to help someone in need of a concrete job they were doing.

 In 2007 Russ started working for CDOT doing maintenance work until retiring from there in 2022.  He started out doing regular maintenance work on a patrol, but his heavy equipment operating skills were recognized early on and from then on you would see Russ operating paving machines, skid loaders, vactor trucks, excavators, loaders, rotomilling machines, and anything else they could throw at him. His skillset was impressive.       

  Cristi Clark, his wife of 10 years, and he had a beautiful daughter Rachelle who was born January 24, 1989. Their years together were spent at car shows, going boating, and enjoying time with their daughter.                                                                                                                                                                        

Anybody who knew Russ knew his love for cars. Love doesn’t even begin to touch what cars meant to him. His passion for cars started at a young age and continued up until a week before his passing. His first full car remodel was a 1936 chevy coupe. It started out as a rusty beat-up car that turned into a car that was unrecognizable. This car would later be entered in car shows. Not only did he appreciate the rebuilding of the engines, but he also enjoyed painting the cars to make them look brand new. Antique pedal cars were also part of his car passion. He would find the ugliest, rustiest looking pedal car and restore it to brand new. He had a knack for color matching to the year the cars came out. His restoration skills were seen in old school antiques including old toy cars and airplanes and old gas pumps. His garage was like walking into a museum of antiques. Pedal cars lined the rafters of the ceilings, old motorcycle tanks lined the rafters, toy cars were displayed on shelves, posters and signs were covering the walls, old school gas pumps sitting outside waiting to be used, and his project car happily displayed for everyone to see. He built an attachment welding garage and painting garage. Many jeeps went through his garage as well. It was amazing to watch him take a jeep completely apart and have it together the next week. His love of motorcycles was seen in his restoration skills as well. He would find an old bike and have it look new in no time. One of his projects was a truck and motorcycle restoration all in one. He rebuilt the truck to look brand new, found a bike the same year and restored that too. The bike matched the truck perfectly and sat in the back of it to be displayed. His last project car was a 1931 model A rod that he was building for his 4-year-old granddaughter, Ava. He would light up talking about it and was working on it every chance he got.

Russ was always busy doing something. If it wasn’t cars or motorcycles it was building and flying model airplanes or golfing or bowling, but what he enjoyed most was the motorcycle rides with his daughter and spending time with his granddaughter. Ava, always being on the move made it quite the task for him to keep up with her, yet you knew he loved chasing her. Ava got to share her grandpa’s passion for cars. Her mom growing up had a corvette Barbie car that she would ride around and around the block. Russ being Russ made sure that car was up to par for Ava to ride. Ava got in to take it for her first ride and ran it right into the side of his garage. Together he and his daughter shared quite the laugh knowing she was perfectly fine, but the car had some scuffs. Russ also had a 1955 Ford station wagon he was proud of that Ava loved too.

Russ sadly was taken from us way too soon; cancer is an ugly thing, and he fought a courageous battle with it. In Lieu of flowers, please keep Russ’s memory alive with a donation in his name to the Sara Canon Cancer Research Center in Denver. Russ is survived by his parents Robert and Chardell Foose, brothers Randy and Jeff, sister-in-law Marie, Daughter Rachelle and son in law Alan, granddaughter Ava and her soon-to-be-born sister. He peacefully passed away on September 9, 2023.

A Celebration of Life will be held at a later date.