Wayne Harlin Ragland

On August 18, 2023, Wayne Harlin Ragland, lovingly known to most as Bubba, peacefully passed away. He was born in 1941 in Los Angeles, California to Virgie and Harley Ragland. He lived a full life of inspiration, innovation, and service to others.

Wayne leaves behind a substantial family who loved and admired him. He is survived by his beloved wife, Linda, and his six children, including, his daughters, Tracie and Nathen Drage, Robin Ragland and Jim Bell, Shelly and Mark Gardner, Shauna Ragland; his sons, Mark and Sherri Ragland, and Chad and Heidi Ragland. His deep love for his family was evident in the way he nurtured and guided them.

Born and raised in the Los Angeles area, Wayne, at a young age, earned money by selling newspapers in the Chavez Ravine. This is likely the reason Wayne adored baseball and became a loyal Los Angeles Dodger fan. As Wayne grew older, he loved playing all the sports. Wayne's favorite high school subjects were food, pizza, geography, and Linda. After High school, Wayne followed Linda to BYU, where he proposed to marry his high school sweetheart in 1960. Linda has forever been the love of his life for more than 63 years.

As an 18-year-old, Wayne was a convert to his faith, which ultimately was a space where Wayne was a guiding force to so many individuals. He helped with Boy Scouts, camp outs, youth activities as well as helped Linda establish a safe home for so many of the neighborhood youth who looked to him for support and his love. To this day, Wayne’s example is still helping so many find the path that is helpful and supportive when life gets hard, or hard choices are being made.

In 1968 Wayne and Linda moved permanently to Salt Lake City, Utah. This is where Wayne continued to learn construction skills particularly in the electrician trade. Wayne moved around jobs but ultimately landed in Park City in the late 1970’s. Wayne would be the first to work and the last to leave. This caught the eye of Jack Roberts, who owned a ski resort. Wayne would find himself quickly getting opportunities and advance to become the resort’s Mountain Manager. In the ensuing years, Wayne would help save Park West when he led efforts to recruit investors to lease the resort and keep the local’s favorite resort open. During this time, our father truly treated the Park West like the family farm.

Wayne would continue to pioneer and innovative ideas at the resort. Wayne helped install new ski lifts, create ski runs with names like “slaughterhouse,” and “massacre.” He helped establish the Summer Concerts series which attracted bands including the Grateful Dead, Beach Boys, Crosby, Stills and Nash and Howard Jones. He was instrumental in developing snow making machines, and school youth ski programs. One of Wayne's fond memories was 7 lifts for $11 dollars. These tickets were sold at 7-11 convenience stores. You could always find our father listening to the weather cube in our kitchen. This broadcast the most current weather report where he would stress not knowing if the resort would get open with snowfall in time for Christmas.

In 1985, Wayne took a step forward into a whole new career with a company out of Midland, Michigan, called SMI. (focused on man made snowmaking) Naturally, Wayne was a perfect fit for that job and the nickname SNOWMAN and Daddy Rags was born. With SMI, Wayne navigated and helped ski resorts all over the intermountain west with artificial snow making. As the years passed and his expertise was utilized, Wayne helped resorts and venues have proper snow coverage. This was instrumental in helping Salt Lake to secure the 2002 Olympic Winter Games bid in 1995. Wayne's snowmaking career lasted nearly 40 years. If you've skied in Utah, you’ve skied on runs with snow from Wayne Ragland’s pioneered snowmaking systems.

Wayne was a traveler, and he loved the outdoors, especially the beach. He fished with his kids, loved whitewater rafting and guiding, country music, and model railroading to name a few. He was famous for pulling hamstrings (even though mom told him not to do that back flip), hitting dingers at the ward softball games, cooking pancakes on Sunday mornings for the kids and taking the grandchildren and great grandchildren to the tubing hill every Christmas. He cherished spending time with his nineteen grandchildren and twenty five great grandchildren. Wayne enjoyed taking them on adventures and telling them all the fun facts that you never knew you needed to know. He loved Skyline Eagles Football like the bible, as well as just loved to chat about anything and everything. Everyone knows our dad.

Wayne was a beacon of positivity, always supportive of his family and friends. He persistently taught the invaluable lesson to always watch for opportunities to serve others. He not only was successful and intuitive, Wayne took pride in his accomplishments until he retired in 2017 after that he became a full time supporter of his family’s side hustles, businesses, and endeavors. Most of the time you could find him shuttling supplies to the U of U football team, like jerseys, warmups, and supplies or gear. He loved being a part of helping with the U's sports gear, even though he was devout Cougar. Wayne loved driving the gear up at the last minute when they had emergencies for all the teams.

Wayne is leaving a legacy of kindness, generosity, and acceptance. He lived by the motto "Come as you are," and always saw the good in everyone. His resilience and altruistic spirit left an indelible impact on all who knew him and will continue to inspire generations to come. We will miss his "air cover" and we know we will meet again. We love you dad.

A visitation will be held on August 30, 2023, at 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. at 2675 East 4430 South, Holladay, UT 84124 at The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The next day, on August 31st, a Celebration of Life will be held at 11 a.m. at the same location. Everyone who knew and loved Wayne is respectfully invited to attend.

In lieu of flowers, please donate on Wayne’s behalf to SOS Outreach. Its mission is to build character and leadership in youth through mentoring outdoors thru snowsports. https://