Family, friends remember Lowe as loving, athletic, hard-working

Faced with a family history of relatives dying young, the towering former athlete worked out religiously to stay healthy.

Five days a week for the past several years, John Lowe, 51, was at the gym doing CrossFit, achieving about 22 percent body fat and competing in weekend competitions.

Several of Lowe’s family members died young, including a brother who just died earlier this year. Heart problems ran in his family, and John wanted to make sure he was around for years to take care of his wife, Lori Lowe, and their son, Ben Lowe.

John Lowe was the man who would give his own truck keys to a friend whose car broke down, teach his nephew how to fix a car engine and his son how to wrestle and play football. He always did what was right for his family, those closest to him said.

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The man known for his 6-foot-2 lean stature, love of athletics and booming but soothing voice, was one of four Johnson County residents killed when a plane crashed last week in a Michigan field en route to a job. Tim Clark, Joel Beavins and Neil Sego also died in the crash, as did a Plainfield resident, Zechariah Bennett. The sole survivor of the crash, Aaron Blackford, of Frankton, is recovering at a Lansing-area hospital.

The men boarded a plane Oct. 3 at the Indy South Greenwood Airport destined for Lansing, Michigan on a work trip for The Engineering Collaborative, an Indianapolis engineering firm Lowe had co-owned since 2013.

Lowe did many jobs for the company, including administration work and HVAC design. He enjoyed the design work more than management, Lori Lowe said. 

The U.S. Navy veteran had studied at a nuclear power school in New York. That was where he and Lori first began their courtship. The couple met in 1989 through a college roommate of Lori’s, when John was preparing to join the Navy.

John wasn’t looking for anything serious or monogamous and told Lori that many times. The pair talked on the phone for hours, as friends, covering everything, including relationships. John’s Navy career was taking him all over the country, and he didn’t want to put a partner through that, Lori said.

"I knew I wanted to date him seriously, (but) he said he wasn’t ready to be monogamous," she said.

Soon after, John was spending more time in Indianapolis. One day in July of 1991, he called Lori up and proposed. Four months later, they were married in Pennsylvania. The next day, Lori moved to Hawaii where John was based.

"I said yes. I knew in my heart he was the one," she said.

The Lowes tried for years to build their family, but struggled to conceive. They both had surgeries and were able to have their only child, Ben, who was born in the midst of one of the biggest snow storms in recent Hoosier history, in February 2007, 15 years into their marriage.

John jumped into fatherhood and wanted to show Ben his love of athletics and what being on a team could teach you, Lori said. He had played football in the Center Grove Bantam League and at Center Grove High School, where he graduated. He also played a little bit of football at Franklin College.

"John was there at every practice, pretty much every meet or every game," she said.

Ben wrestled before he even started kindergarten, and John was right there coaching him. He got a mat pass so he could be on the floor with Ben and other wrestlers on the team in the youth program for Center Grove wrestling.

One of the things that stood out about John was that he was always there and always coaching and helping, said Cale Hoover, a former wrestling coach at Center Grove High School. 

His voice was low and booming and could cut through a full gym of people and get to the kid he was coaching, Hoover said.

“He was a big man and he had a big voice and it was just that deep, singular voice that you could hear," he said. "It doesn’t matter how many people were in there, it stood out." 

Also coaching baseball and football as Ben moved through Center Grove’s youth sports programs, John was good at connecting with the kids. Kids saw him all the time, and he earned their trust with his coaching methods. Plus, if he had something to say, it was hard to escape him, Hoover said.

“He would just talk to kids a lot and encourage them. He contributed that way," he said. “They loved him. He was this big teddy bear."

John was known for his tough, but caring love, said Josh List, his nephew. He stepped up when List’s father died and acted as a surrogate father. He operated on tough love, List said.

“Tough love, but still there with you, always," he said.

When List was a teen, his car was having some engine problems. His uncle offered to help him fix it, List said.

Really, John Lowe showed him what to do and made him do all of the work, he said.

"He told me there are two ways to fix it: you fix it or you fix it," List said.

Any family member could always depends on John. List scrolled through his phone and discovered that John would call him at the same time nearly every day. At 3:22 p.m., he checked in with his nephew between work and CrossFit to make sure he was doing OK. If someone needed a place to stay, John had a room. If a coworker needed a vehicle, he loaned his indefinitely.

"He would do anything for anybody," List said.

Over the course of many weekends, List and his uncle built a hunting cabin in Shoals. Staying at the cabin became a tradition for John, his family and friends, List said.

The time spent there wasn’t about the hunting, but rather the camaraderie after hunting that was always centered around John. He would talk to anybody about anything, and could have servers at restaurants laughing and shaking their heads at his stories, List said.

“If life is happening, John is going to be there," List said. “He was happy to be alive, any day he could be here was a great day.”

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John Lowe died in a plane crash in Michigan.

A Go Fund Me page has been set up to help his family, with other proceeds going to the local wrestling community.

Donations can be made here: www.gofundme.com/f/john-lowe-memorial

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