ONE DYIN' AND A BURYIN'

Today we buried my friend and the Sheriff of our County. There were many, many police officers there to mourn his passing. He served as a City Police Officer, a Highway Patrol Officer and as our Sheriff for 12 years.

The hearse carrying his body was escorted by these motor cycles and their officers and an unknown (but a whole lot) of patrol officers in their cars with the lights flashing. We never got where we could get a good picture of the whole line of the cars.

He was honored by the Utah Highway Patrol honor guard and bagpipe officers. He was given a very impressive 21 gun salute. The bagpipes played and brought many tears to my eyes.

This is not a good shot of the helicopter but the Utah Highway Patrol helicopter flew by and gave a final salute to him. This was all very impressive to have happen at a small community cemetary.

Near the end the honor guard folded the flag that was on his coffin and presented it to our Sheriff elect who saluted and then presented it to his wife. At the very end our dispatch center made a final radio call and read a eulogy over the radio to him. There were handheld radios on many of the officer's duty belts and this final call was very impressive. It is tough to see a good friend go on to greener pastures.

Now for a funny story about him. I met with him and the County Commissioners to discuss what I intended to do with the lightning fires that started on the district that year. I told them I was going to manage any lightning caused fire that occurred on the district that wasn't a serious threat to life or property. I told them what that meant, letting fires burn naturally, and taking control action only when they passed predetermined map points.

We discussed this for quite a while and he finally said "You are not going to do this in my county." I said "Yes, I intend to do it on the entire district and part of the district is in your county." He said "If you do I will arrest you and take you to jail." I told him "Fair enough warning."

A few weeks later I called him on the phone and said "This is Dee Ice Hole and I think you may want to come and get me and take me to jail. I have just decided to manage a fire about 3 miles east of the town where you live so thought you might want to make the arrest yourself." He laughed and said "Why don't you come and get me and we'll go look at your fire together so that I understand what you are doing."

I did and we spent a couple of hours discussing fire and fire suppression then I took him home. From that day forward he supported me in everything I did with fire---even when the chips were down and I was thinking I was in serious trouble because of my decision he was there to support me along with the Seriff from the adjoining County. We had to do an evacuation one afternoon because a management fire got within about 100 yards of six summer homes. Both Sheriff's showed up with enough Deputies to take care of anything that could have occurred. We held the evacuation the entire afternoon while the fire burned hot and threateningly nearby. We let the people stay at a junction about a mile from their homes. As the sun went down and the fire began to die down we discussed it and decided we could let the people back in to their homes with the understanding that if the fire came back up the next day they would have to leave again. The fire didn't come back up and I gained another dozen tremendous supporters of management fires.

AND quite frankly that is where the quote "I'D RATHER BE LUCKY THAN GOOD" came from. I later added to the quote saying "THE ONLY THING BETTER THAN THAT IS BEING CONSISTENTLY LUCKY." AND I was. But remember Gary Player said "The harder I work the luckier I get." You decide.