Adventurous Adickes Recalled as Happy, Fun-Loving

The only time Josh Adickes could be found relaxing was during the backyard summer picnics with family in his hometown of Long Valley.

Otherwise, he was always moving, always doing something fun. 

That’s what led him to become a police officer in the town his family vacationed in annually – Ocean City, Maryland – and continue on with a lineage that loved to fly.

On June 30, at the age of 27, Adickes and a fellow officer, flying in a two-seater plane, died after crashing into the sea about a half-mile off the Ocean City shoreline.

Adickes isn’t just a native son of Long Valley, he’s part of a lineage that goes back to the days when Schooley’s Mountain was recognized as a beautiful piece of New Jersey landscape rather than a thoroughfare for out-of-towners, and township schools were single-room instructional facilities.

Adickes, the oldest of three, was a football player, wrestler and lacrosse player for West Morris Central – the same high school where his mother and father, Gerry and Dale, both graduated.

Once he graduated from college, Adickes moved to Ocean City, according his cousin and Long Valley resident Lisa Inza. He officially became one of the town’s police officers in 2012, and was ready to settle down.

“We just saw [the Adickes] on Saturday at a barbecue,” Inza said. “We were talking about Josh and how he was doing, and that he was starting to look to buy a house down there.”

The family spreads throughout Long Valley like burnt umbers encompass treetops in the fall, claiming generations and cousins with the surnames Beck, Inza, Adickes, Lance, Sergeant and Wydner. 

With that much family in one town, the news sent shockwaves throughout Washington Township.

“[The entire family] is just kind of in shock right now,” Inza said. “He had his head on straight. He was always a good kid. It’s just tragic.”

Using his downtime to search the sky came as no surprise to Inza, either. Numerous members of the Adickes family had their pilot’s license and adventurism wasn’t lost on Josh or his brothers, one of which is currently serving in the Navy, Inza said.

While he become a full time police officer in Maryland, Adickes' roots were always grounded in Long Valley.

"He'd come back during Christmas breaks and check out some practices and talk with [the coaches]," said West Morris Central assistant wrestling coach Jim Balella, who had Adickes, as well as his three brothers as student-athletes.

"Josh was the kind of kid that would do anything you asked and never said a word or complained about it," Balella continued. "He was the type of student and teammate you wanted the other kids to be like. He was a positive kid always helping others."

Adickes was always working to improve on his abilities, both on and off the mat, Balella said. And because of that, the coach said, his teammates and friends were better off for it.

Balella, having instructed all three Adickes as wrestlers, was proud to say he knew the family so well.

"It's such a tight-knit family," Balella said sadly. "It's really similar to mine and it's rare you see families today like that. It just crushed me. 

"It just sucks," Balella said.

Adickes was accompanied by a smile as much as he was his athletic gear, and friends in high school knew him as a jokester, and dubbed him The Gingerbread Man.

His senior year quote in the school’s Talisman yearbook was a quick note to his close circle of friends, saying “The corner forever, never forget the memories.”

The corner was where he and his friends congregated during non-class time, playing pranks and enjoying each other’s company.

Those same memories Adickes warned to keep close are now all that remain, but won’t soon be forgotten. 

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