 The name Fultz is derived from German. It is derived from Fulco which is a short form of the name Volk. Fultz is also the Americanized way of spelling Volz. Once you hear the story of Terry Fultz, and his two sons, the name takes on a whole new meaning, how about Overcomers.
Heading the car south of Seattle the destination is a town called Vernonia, Oregon. You have to head towards highway 26, go down about 18 to 20 miles until you hit some woods. Once you hit the dense forest you take a right, go about 15 more miles until you hit an old logging community that started in the 1800's. Welcome to Vernonia, Oregon.
Terry, and his wife decided to move here permanently several years ago. He was a business man wearing a suit, and tie everyday, working out of a beautiful office in downtown Portland, Oregon. After spending one of the several weekends out in the peaceful wilderness of Vernonia, they traded in the city life for the tranquility of the country. Needless to say they've been there every since.
Growing up in the city of Longview, Washington Terry started to become interested in, and began to take up the sport of bodybuilding some 46 years ago at the age of 14. The trek began after seeing old time physique stars like Reg Park who played Hercules on the big screen. After seeing Reg, and the impressive physique that he displayed, Terry became enamored. In his own words "that was kind of cool". He moved to the city of Vancouver, Washington where he saw his first weight training gym. This is the city where the dreams began to own his very own gym. While in Vancouver Terry met a gentleman that would become his trainer for bodybuilding, as well as his friend. Rocky Johnson was a professional wrestler who was very much into the sport of bodybuilding to enhance his wrestling career. He took Terry under his wing, and began to show him proper technique, nutrition, and the lifestyle it takes to become a successful physique star. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the name Rocky Johnson you may know of his son a little better. Rocky Johnson happens to be the father of movie star the Rock. Yes, the Rock was around and kicking as a young child when Terry would train with Rocky, he used to bounce little Rock on his knee from time to time. These days that role might be switched around just a little bit.
His first show was the 1983 novice Mr. Portland in which he won. From there the victory ball just kept on rolling. He was the 1987 overall Oregon State Champion. The show that Terry considers to be his rite of passage is the now defunct Portland Rose Cup. This show has so much meaning to him because for years fans, judges, and those involved in the physique world would always tell Terry that his legs were too small this was due to a lot of attention being paid to his upper body workouts, and not enough concentration on his legs. "Bring up your legs", was the cry that he heard for the first years of competition. He had become frustrated with this. With desire, dedication, and determination the battle was on to work hard to develop the "wheels" to bring them up enough to be an equal focal point of his physique on stage. At show time the stage was lined with several competitors who had excellent leg development. Could this be the night that Terry losses a competition because of his past weaknesses? The call outs for the placings were being made, "and in first place Terry Fultz ". The graduation day had come for him, and it was a happy validation of the culmination of his hard work. The judges, and fellow competitors, and fans told Terry the thing that separated him from the other competitors was the awesome leg development that he displayed. During the late 1980's he decided to take time out from competitions to raise his two sons. Wanting his boys to grow up with proper fatherly guidance he knew that quality time, and lots of it is the key ingredient in raising a child. So he scaled back his training to 3 times per week combining weights with running. In his words "sons need their fathers".
 The road back to competition is one that none of us would desire to travel. It starts by involving one of Terry's two sons. One day on the way to a camping trip Kelly Fultz, and a friend were out in the middle of a remote location. They ended up in a one vehicle accident, how this exactly happened isn't clearly known. The types of trauma that both victims suffered can often leave the memories of such an occurrence non existent. What is known is that it was a roll over, as well as end over end accident. Kelly was ejected out of the jeep they were riding in. He ended up in a ravine hidden from sight near the main area of the road. When helped finally arrived sometime later they found Kelly's camping buddy seat belted in the jeep, incoherent, and severely injured. Not seeing or realizing that any other passengers were in the jeep the rescuers started to aid the friend, and obviously ignored Kelly in the ravine for quite sometime. He was discovered quite a while after the rescuers arrived. A woman in a cape approached the rescuers, carrying a medical bag, she asked everyone to step aside, indentified herself as a nurse, and began to work on Kelly. Previous to this time he had been violent fighting his rescuers as best he could. The reason later would be found that his airway was cut off, and he was struggling for oxygen. The caped crusader as though divinely led knew to establish Kelly's airway. She did so saving his life He was airlifted to OHSU the hospital his life hanging in the balance. When the EMT crew arrived they inquired as to who opened Kelly's airway. . It seems that out of thin air she came, and out of thin air she vanished. You may not want to read any further if graphic details get you squeamish. He flew out of the jeep, went head first into a rock wall, bounced off the wall into the ravine. The impact broke his nose, causing him also to lose nearly all of his teeth, was skinned up from head to toe, disfigured one whole side of his face, and bit his tongue completely off. The way his tongue was discovered was by an EMT walking around the accident area who just happened to step on something squishy. He looked down to discover Kelly's tongue, and then put it on ice, rushed it to the hospital where Kelly was taken.
Coming home from the hospital Kelly weighed a soaking wet 85 lbs. Besides the long difficult physical recovery process, he had self esteem issues to overcome. Remember, his face was grossly disfigured, his teeth were almost entirely gone, and did I mention he bit his tongue off completely in half, of which the severed half lay on the ground to be discovered, and sewn back together later? Try learning how to walk, talk, look at yourself grossly disfigured facially, and on top of that gaining your natural strength, and body weight back. Do you have it pictured yet? Well if you do then you can only understand, and thankfully never have to personally experience this type of trauma. Preparing to climb this double mountain, mount physical, and also mount mental would have to take some special circumstances. Motivation to began the climb would come by way of dad Terry Fultz.
 Let's roll the clock back to 1997. Terry in hopes of inspiring his son put some weights in the back yard. This way Kelly would look outside, and see the weights sitting there everyday. Wanting the suggestion of working out to come from his son, Terry just set out the bait in hopes that Kelly would bite. After a while Kelly on his own would go out into the back yard, and pick up some weights, and started limited weight training. Soon it got to a point where Kelly would start asking dad for some pointers to maximize the time he was putting in on the weights. The weather in Vernonia started to turn for the worse at this point, so Terry moved the weights into the barn to continue any future training sessions. This was not only an inspirational time for his son but little did anyone know at that moment it would become the birth of Terry's gym. This gym is the first to be opened in the history of the city of Vernonia. It has grown tremendously since the time of its birth. Because of Kelly's passionate personality, Terry knew that once Kelly started to train the hawk would swoop down to bite him, and the love of bodybuilding would set it's talons in, and grab hold. He began to train with a burning fire. It got to a point where Kelly started to alter his diet to fit the bodybuilding lifestyle. I a short time Kelly bulked up from his hospital release of 85 lbs to a muscular 210 lbs.
The training, and diet was going so well that dad decided to ask Kelly the big question "why don't you compete in a bodybuilding contest"? Kelly looked at dad, and said if you compete again I will also. Terry pondered this statement for a brief moment, all kinds of thoughts, emotions, and dreams were racing through his mind. He looked at Kelly, and said "yes", and the duo began to train for contest preparation. Terry collaborated with Kelly to pick a routine, and song from one of his past performances on stage during the 1980's. The first show that the new dynamic duo targeted to compete in was 2002. In this their first event together, Kelly placed second, and Terry took home first place honors. In 2003 The Pacific Northwest Championships were on the agenda. Terry entered the masters division, while Kelly dieted down to the middle weight class. I was blessed to be there on that historic night. For the first, and only time in Pacific Northwest physique history that a father, and son won the overall titles in a major regional physique event. Terry was crowned the overall Masters champion, while son Kelly was awarded his well earned victory for the overall open mens championships. This feat has never been duplicated since, and not likely to be done so in the future.
Since that time Kelly has gone on to medical school, and received his degree as a medical assistant. He now owns a 6000 square foot personal training facility in Gresham Oregon. His specialty currently includes training several doctors, and business professional. Hopefully one day we will see the dynamic duo will compete again.
Terry's oldest son is named John. Talk about having two accomplished sons. John started out in his youth as a civil air patrol cadet. He went on to become a member of the United States Coast Guard working on a life boat in the Coos Bay area. He wound up getting transferred to Florida where he fell in love with the C130 military aircraft. Inspired by the opportunity to fly, John started to work with the aircraft later working his way to flight engineer, and check this out, he became a pilot that has earned his air force wings. It is easy to see why we can associate the meaning of the name Fultz as being an Overcomer.
You can see Terry currently competing at any one of several shows here in the Northwest area. He competes mainly in the Masters over 60 division, but has upset a many young buck in the open classes. Imagine being a 20 something in the open division, and losing to a 60 plus outstanding competitor. Could it be that you are indeed good, except you just ran into an older gentleman that is just that much better? Terry Fultz, look for him entertaining on a stage near you.
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