How a Greensboro man’s ALS diagnosis led to a new beer at Oden Brewing

GREENSBORO, N.C. (WGHP) — Some people just seem to be genetically blessed, and Lee Shores was one of them.

“I was not involved in organized athletics, growing up. I ran cross country in high school and was terrible,” Lee said. “And then, after I graduated, I bought my first bicycle and I fell in love with the bike.”

Living in Colorado, Lee would bike more than 200 miles most weeks and he was a marathoner, as well. He did that while, for the past 20-plus years, teaching chemistry and AP chemistry at Dudley High School in Greensboro, a job he loved.

As he approached his 65th birthday, he was still going strong. And then, things began to change.

“I think the summer of ’18, I began to notice things were not quite what they needed to be,” Lee said as he spoke about the times he could do as a marathoner. “You know, none minutes was kind of my numbers but then they started building – 10, 11, 12, and I started falling. And I would say, ‘I’m just not getting to the gym, enough.’”

But that wasn’t it at all.

“Lee had reached that point that he was looking forward to retirement when he got his diagnosis of ALS, so the journey in retirement has been very different for him that he had expected,” said Rev. Kyle Goodman who has worked with Lee for years at Alamance Presbyterian Church in Greensboro.

Lee is a voracious reader so he began to read about ALS—Lou Gehrig’s disease—with which about 5,000 people are diagnosed each year. But he learned that’s not enough to attract major research dollars, so ALS families are often on their own in trying to raise money.

A woman in Washington state named Cheryl Hanes knows that all too well. She has nine family members who either have died from or are battling ALS now. She and her husband, Mike Smith, are third-generation hops farmers in Yakima, Washington. They run a farm that’s produced hops since 1932 and they helped begin a program called, Ales for ALS. They create a new hop blend each year and then provide it to craft brewers for free if those brewers donate at least a dollar from each pint sold to ALS research. The first year, they had 33 breweries participate and they raised $130,000. Now, they have more than 200 and have raised more than $3,500,000.

When Lee learned about the program, he brought it up to Oden Brewing, a place his church already had a relationship with through a “Beers & Hymns” event they did there regularly.

“I’m a pastor, and we’re all about building community, and I think this kind of place where people can come together is just another important place, like a church, in a community where people can make connections from different walks of life,” said Goodman.

When Oden heard about Ales for ALS, they were in right away.

“One of our biggest goals, when we started the brewery, was to be part of the community and give back,” said one of the family who owns the brewery, Mary Garner Oden.

They produced an IPA called Chuck Mountain Dew, named in honor of The Chuck Mountain Band, which plays at the brewery often and was there for the night they debuted the beer.

The money they raise isn’t likely to benefit Lee, but when he looks at his life, he focuses on all he has been able to do, rather than what he might not be around to do later.

“Am I going to reject the good that I’ve had for the few moments of bad?” said Lee. “Terrible things can happen to any of us – I mean, we know that.”

See more of Lee’s story and the Ales for ALS program in this edition of the Buckley Report.