USAF Master Sergeant Thomas C. Busch

Retired USAF Master Sergeant Thomas “Wheels” Busch walked on just after midnight on December 10th, 2024, his spirit on an eternal bike ride and pushed by a tailwind. He had spent the last four years defying the odds that the glioblastoma tumor in his brain had laid out, and knowing his limited time left on Earth, he lived life well.

Born in Valparaiso, Indiana, he spent his childhood roaming the sand dunes and shoreline of Lake Michigan in what is now The Indiana Dunes State Park. While in high school, Tom was the manager of the 49er Drive-In Theatre, another iconic landmark that is still showing movies today. Of all his childhood memories, those two places were the most special to him, and he was able to return to both over the past four years. Tom was also an avid Indiana Hoosiers basketball fan, and he also made a point to see some basketball games in Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall—not even a wintertime bomb cyclone could keep him away—and he took great pride in converting his partner Karen “KD” Stoff, a lifelong Jayhawks fan, into a Hoosier.

Tom entered the US Air Force in 1983 and worked for almost 22 years in the petroleum, oil, and lubricants (POL) career field. He was one of the lucky ones who spent two-thirds of his military career stationed overseas, and of course, he made the most of it. From running with the bulls to watching gold-medal Olympic track and field events, from walking the beaches of Normandy to riding his bike in the Dolomites, from New Years Eve in London to a deployed Thanksgiving in Morocco, Tom made sure to experience the culture and fun of as many countries as he could. And that same drive held true for when he was stationed in the United States. Cold Nebraska winters didn’t keep him from seeing the Smashing Pumpkins or countless Blues bands, traffic didn’t keep him from carousing through the Bay Area and LA, and the daily grind didn’t keep him from skiing Tahoe or mountain biking the Sierras. But even with all his adventures and dedication to intramural softball, he worked hard and rose above his POL peers to earn the award of the Headquarters Air Force Senior Fuels Technician of 1999.

During his final assignment, Tom discovered that he liked living on the Rio Grande, and after his active-duty retirement, he remained in Del Rio, Texas, as a civil servant where he spent nearly twenty years as the contract operations representative of POL activities at Laughlin Air Force Base. By providing government oversight during his tenure, over 686,000 sorties trained more than 6,500 pilots. He also stepped up to lead the Logistics Readiness Flight when the flight’s civilian director position went unfilled for a long period, and again, Tom rose above his peers—he was the 2012 Air Education and Training Command Outstanding Civilian Supervisor of the Year.

Even though he was busy ensuring the Air Force had what it needed to train its warfighters, he always found time to ride his bike. The citizens of Del Rio grew used to seeing him riding to and from the base during the weekdays and on every road outside of town on the weekends. If one were to plot every spot where he’d had a flat and had stopped to patch a bike tube, they would have as good a roadmap as any digital source could produce. Tom learned that he had a knack for riding long distances, and not long after he found his partner KD, he began his journey as an ultra-cyclist. His first race in 2013 was a 200-mile loop out of Alpine, Texas, and it introduced him to suffering through climbs, heat, dust devils, hunger, and an endless road to the finish line. But he and his stalwart crew chief KD figured things out, and he crossed the finish line within the race time limit. Hooked on the sport, over the next seven years the two of them appeared at every race on the Texas ultra-cycling circuit. He didn’t set records, but he enjoyed everything about the sport, especially the camaraderie shared by those who suffered on their bikes.

Tom trained in Del Rio, and he owned many KOMs on Strava (ifkyk). Whenever someone (usually new to town) bested his KOM, he would just get on his bike and take it back. Even when the glioblastoma tumor was first and unknowingly growing in his brain, Tom was reclaiming his KOMs. True to form, after he was rushed to San Antonio during Thanksgiving week of 2020 for an emergency craniotomy, Tom woke from surgery determined to keep riding his bike. After his neuro-oncologist told him it was time to do what he loved because he had a terminal cancer of the brain with a median life expectancy of 11 months, Tom signed up for a 500-mile bike race that would happen 30-days after his combined chemo-radiation treatment. Once again surrounded by cycling friends at a start line in Texas, Tom began that race with the goal to enjoy every mile. After 42 hours and with a floppy neck, he crossed the finish line of his second-ever 500-mile race.

Over the next three years as each MRI revealed “no disease progression” and as he wore an experimental device on his head to keep the cancer cells from reproducing, he tackled his list of races and rides that he’d always wanted to do. Five months after his 500-mile race and in-between a round of chemo, Tom finished the HooDoo 300 in Utah—two days later, he rode up Mt Evans then the next day up Pikes Peak, two epic, cycling bucket-list climbs to over 14,000 feet. The next year, he returned to Utah to do the HooDoo 500 race and finished strong despite riding seventy percent of the race and climbing up to 13,000 feet using a heavy time trial bike after his main, and lighter, bike had a catastrophic mechanical issue. Twice during those three years, he spent a week in the spring in the Texas Hill Country riding a hundred miles each day with friends before competing in a 200-mile race to finish the week. He and KD even officiated the 3,000-mile Race Across America three times, electing to stay with the team racers because the fast pace and long shifts were the closest things to actually racing. It was during the third race that Tom learned the tumor had regrown, but that didn’t stop him from enjoying every minute he could, and he signed up for one more bucket-list race. At the end of September 2023 and in the rain outside of Nashville on the Natchez Trace Parkway, Tom started what he felt would be his last race. Riding south on smooth pavement over rolling hills and with little traffic, the skies quickly cleared, and after 32 hours he finished the 444 miles with a twenty-mile sprint outside of Natchez, Mississippi, to the parkway exit. His last race had been his most enjoyable—what any cyclist could hope for.

While he had glioblastoma, Tom participated in three clinical trials. He knew there was no cure for him and others currently living with the disease, but he wanted to help find a way to eventually cure it. During the last year of his life, Tom faced each sign of the cancer’s presence with his signature good attitude. He and KD found new ways to bring joy to his days and to laugh as much as possible. Even though he had defied the odds by outliving the median life expectancy by three years, he knew there was no real “fighting” glioblastoma—because to fight meant that there was a possibility to win. Instead, he chose to live the best life possible, and he will be missed by those who lived life with him: his mother Nancy Busch, his brother Gary Busch, his sister Anita Wagner, his partner KD Stoff, his aunts and uncles and extended family members, his longtime friends and coworkers, his cycling friends, and everyone who got to enjoy a laugh with him.

In lieu of memorial contributions, Tom asked for all to go outside and either take a walk or ride a bike in remembrance of him.