Beloved paddling shop to close as owner follows calling to become hospice chaplain

After Darren Bush had a “widowmaker” heart attack about three years ago that could have killed him, he took a step back and reevaluated his future.

“When you’re lying on a table in the ER with eight people shaving and poking and prodding and inserting and all that, nothing else really matters at that point,” he told WPR. “Then they wheel you off, and you either come out of there alive or don’t come out of there — it gets pretty real.”

Bush has been the sole owner of Rutabaga Paddlesports, a Madison-area specialty sporting goods shop, since 2007. But the shop has been a part of his life since 1990 when he started working there part-time on the weekends selling canoes.

In that time, he’s seen the retail landscape change with the rise of online shopping. Although the COVID-19 pandemic was a boost for the shop’s sales, Bush said he’s felt “less and less fun” and “more and more stress” in recent years.

He believes stress contributed to his heart attack, which forced him to ask, “What do I really want?”

In a newsletter post on Sunday, Bush announced that he will retire from retail and close the Rutabaga Paddlesports shop at the end of 2025 to work as a chaplain. 

“My business has never been about just selling stuff,” he said in an interview. “It’s about creating communities and helping people, so now I’m going to go create communities and help people in a different way.”

For the past roughly four years, he has volunteered as a hospice chaplain, supporting dying patients and their families. 

“I’ve found it to be the most rewarding thing I ever did, and it got to the point where I’m like, ‘Do I want to do this the rest of my life?’” Bush said. “It became very obvious, this is what I’m supposed to do.”

In January, he’ll begin part-time training in clinical pastoral education, the certification required to become a professional chaplain.

“I’ll be interning at University Hospital while I complete my certification, then I’ll be the guy in the emergency room or the hospice wing or anywhere people need me. You may find me just checking in with people who are sad or lonely,” Bush wrote in announcing his plans for the store.

Bush said he thought about selling the shop instead of closing at the end of the year. But he didn’t want to sell the business to an investor who doesn’t care about the shop.

Instead, he said he decided to leave on his own terms.

“If the right person came to me and said, ‘I want to keep it going,’ I would consider it,” Bush said. “But the odds of that happening, I think, are very slim.”

Bush said sharing the news with his staff, customers and the community has been “gut-wrenching” and “one of the hardest things I’ve ever done.” Ahead of the public announcement, he said he was in tears reading a statement telling staff about his planned career change.

“At the end, they went, ‘We understand. It’s OK,’” he said. “It isn’t that they’re all like, ‘Yay.’ But they understand, they know me and they know that I’ve been doing this work. And they know that this is my calling and my passion.”

For the paddlers who frequented Rutabaga, the store was “more than just a shop,” said Jared Wold, newsletter editor for the Mad City Paddlers club.

That’s because Rutabaga was not just a place to buy gear, he said.

“Darren always ran the business not so much like a business,” Wold said. “He always called his title, ‘paddling evangelist.’ It wasn’t owner or boss or any of that kind of thing. He was always about fostering the community.”

About three years ago, the store moved to a new building on Rimrock Road in Fitchburg. Wold remembers attending a soft grand opening party at the store shortly after Bush’s heart attack. Wold said the event had “just an amazing sense of community.”

“Everybody was relieved that he was OK, and then everybody was so overjoyed to see this awesome new shop,” he said.

While the shop is closing at the end of the year, Bush has no plans to end the annual Canoecopia event in Madison. 

Known as the world’s largest paddlesports consumer event, Canoecopia fills the Alliant Energy Center’s main hall with kayaks, canoes, stand-up paddleboards and outdoor equipment, and it features more than 100 presentations and clinics.

“I couldn’t let that one go,” Bush said. “It’s a great event for connecting with the community, talking to people and telling stories — that’s what Canoecopia really is about.”

Wold with the Mad City Paddlers club said the event is typically held in early March and gives the paddling community a chance to connect ahead of the summer season. It’s also helped serve as a recruitment tool for the local club.

“From a club standpoint, it’s our chance to see a lot of people that might be brand new to the sport, maybe haven’t heard of us before or maybe are new to the Madison area,” he said.

Beyond Canoecopia, Bush also plans to continue to offer boat rentals at Olbrich Park in Madison, and he’s had conversations with a few people who could continue offering paddleboat classes.

Turning the page on Rutabaga and pursuing a new career isn’t entirely new for Bush, as retail was his third major career change. He was a psychologist/statistician and an epidemiologist before becoming a business owner. 

He said he has always shifted careers once he felt done learning. At Rutabaga, each time he thought he was ready to move on, new lessons kept him there — until now.

“I think I’ve learned what I need to learn here, so I need to go learn new things,” Bush said. “And I’m really excited about it. I know it’s the right thing to do.”

Editor’s note: Rutabaga Paddlesports is a WPR business sponsor.