Determined. Passionate. Caring. Humble. Wise.
Those are just a few of the praising words used to describe Wesley Aaron Rollo, who squeezed a lifetime of experience into the 19 years, five months and 17 days he spent on Earth. He died on May 5 as a result of injuries sustained in a single-vehicle crash two days earlier.
Rollo was a member of the Northwestern State University bass fishing team in Natchitoches, La., and a promising young angler with a future in competitive fishing on his mind. He was one of 12 young men in the U.S. to be named a Bassmaster High School All-American in 2019 while at Natchitoches Central High, and he was half of the team that finished fourth in the 2018 Mossy Oak Fishing Bassmaster High School National Championship presented by Academy Sports + Outdoors on Kentucky Lake.
Editor’s note: See Rollo photos.
His fishing partner that year was Hunter Owens, who was killed in another tragic car accident 14 months prior to Rollo’s fatal crash this month.
Rollo impressed in local and national tournaments, but the respect he earned really came from outside of his Triton bass boat.
It came from the bed at St. Jude’s Children Research Hospital where he valiantly fought, and beat, childhood leukemia during a 31-month stretch prior to high school. It came from Rollo’s trips back to Memphis, Tenn., and to the Ronald McDonald House where he made “Cajun Christmas” visits to other kids battling cancer. It came when he reached out to many of his influential friends in the fishing industry to create the Wesley Aaron Rollo (W.A.R.) Foundation whose sole purpose was to give seriously ill children a chance to fish.
Rollo had a maturity that belied his age, one that could only be learned from facing death, eluding it and in the process, realizing the absolute fragility of every human life.
“Wes had a lot going on for a 19-year-old,” said his father, Jeff. “He had so many offers to help him get the W.A.R. Foundation going. We ran into a lot of people on this journey and they offered to pay his way to fish in tournaments. But Wes never wanted that. He wanted to earn his way. He wasn’t afraid to work.”
Friends for life
Johnny Ledet saw the work ethic firsthand when he was a member of the Northwestern State fishing team and Wes was an eager high schooler who needed a boat captain for an upcoming local tournament. Young Wes won that event, and Jeff joked that Ledet was his son’s good luck charm, and that he’d have to be in the Triton with him for every future tournament.
That began a fantastic friendship between the two, and Ledet became the big brother Wes never had. He captained Rollo’s boat in tournaments across the U.S. from that point, including the two Bassmaster High School National Championships he fished.
“We hit it off right away,” Ledet said. “He was always calling me about fishing and picking my brain. I wondered how someone could love fishing so much. After a tournament, I can’t tell you how many times Wes would beg me to go back out, whether he caught fish or not. I’d tell him, ‘Wes, you must not have fished that hard if you’re not tired after all that.’
“We all wish we had half the energy and the passion Wes had.”
When Ledet started his own seafood business in Natchitoches, Rollo became his right-hand man. He helped him build the place, both inside and out, and Ledet said his friend put everything he had into the job. Still, when it was tournament-time, Ledet knew to let his friend take off as long as he needed.
“Some bosses might not get that, but I understood,” Ledet said. “I knew where his heart was and what fishing meant to him.”
Bassmaster Elite Series Pro Mark Menendez witnessed Rollo’s focus when they were paired together at an adjunct event to the 2019 Texas Fest when that year’s dozen High School All-Americans fished with some of sport’s biggest names in a one-day tournament.
“I’ve been a part of that event every year they’ve had them, and usually when the young guy gets in the boat, he’s just excited to be there,” Menendez said. “Wes was different. He got on the boat and said ‘What’s up?’ He was very laid back. We were like two old fishing buddies. And we had a really good day. We found this little drain and I told him to get ready, that we were about to catch ‘em. He caught a 3-pounder first, and I’m fishing behind the boat and I got a 5-pounder. Then he caught another 3-pounder. Within a matter of seconds, we had 10 or 11 pounds. It was fantastic.”
Rollo and Menendez shared more than a love for bass fishing. They both had been touched by cancer. Rollo had his personal battle, and Menendez lost his wife Donna to pancreatic cancer in 2014. Menendez said a long discussion with Rollo about the disease galvanized their friendship before they ever boated a bass.
“We had cancer in common,” Menendez said. “When you’re in the boat with someone you’re comfortable with, it’s a special thing. We had that. There was a maturity about him, absolutely a different perspective for both of us. Fishing was important to him because it’s what he wanted to do as a vocation, but there was a joy there because he had already beaten the odds.”
Rollo had been an active freshwater angler since his childhood, and he was gifted in other sports as well. When leukemia slowed him down for a few years, he began studying bass fishing technique videos on YouTube and other websites. His interest in the sport grew, and it took off when Gary Yamamoto and Kevin VanDam were among the many legends who visited him during his nearly three-year long stay at St. Jude’s.
Rollo reached out to some of the same people when he and parents Jeff and Sonya laid out the framework for what the W.A.R. Foundation would be. Jeff said his son had grand plans for the nonprofit, specifically to offer bass fishing trips on Toledo Bend Reservoir to ill children. He wanted to lift their spirits much like his own heroes lifted his while he was sick with leukemia.
Planning for the launch of the W.A.R. Foundation was part of Rollo’s busy schedule. He had taken a brief hiatus from his job at T-Johnny’s Seafood by the time COVID-19 slowed the country to a crawl, but he still was taking online classes through Northwestern where he was a freshman business and marketing major.
On May 3, the Rollo family had a crawfish boil at their home. Wes handled the cooking, and even texted his buddy Ledet afterward, crowing that his family said the day’s batch was the best they’d ever eaten.
“He boiled the crawfish, made all the sides,” Jeff Rollo said. “It was a perfect day.”
Wes left his parents’ home later that afternoon headed for his girlfriend Maeli UIsleton’s house, where he took one of his online exams. Then the young couple watched a movie before Wes headed home to beat the 10 p.m. curfew in place because of COVID-19 restrictions. Sometime just past 10 p.m. on May 3, police and EMS responded to a 911 call of an overturned vehicle in flames on La. Hwy. 494. Louisiana State Police said Rollo’s truck left the roadway and traveled through a ditch before striking a culvert head-on.
Wes was found alive underneath the wreckage and transported to a nearby hospital. He soon was airlifted to a larger facility in nearby Alexandria, and despite a furious effort to save him, Wes succumbed to his injuries on the morning of May 5.
Four days later, a funeral was held at Parc Natchitoches, a large outdoors space that offered hundreds of family and friends the space to grieve peacefully. Afterward, a long procession of vehicles moved quietly through town, many of them trailing bass boats behind them.
It was a tribute to a deceased man, a teenaged man, who loved bass fishing more than anything, except perhaps the same friends and family who nurtured him from sickness to health when his body was crippled by cancer. And here they were again, his biggest fans, supporting him until the end.
Wes Rollo took one last ride in his beloved Triton on May 5, his earthly body aboard the boat that brought him so much joy. This journey ended at American Cemetery, located only a couple blocks from the Cane River, the same water where Wes’ fishing journey began.
He was buried in his All-American High School jersey – appropriate for a young champion taken far too soon.
A scholarship to benefit the Northwestern State University bass fishing team has been started in Wes Rollo’s memory. To donate, go online to www.northwesternstatealumni.com/rollo-memorial-scholarship. In lieu of flowers, the Rollo family asked that donations go to the scholarship fund or to St. Jude’s at www.stjude.org.
