Red shirts honor their fallen

On a perfect Wyoming morning a red-shirted Wyoming Game Wardens Association Honor Guard performed a 21-gun salute and sounded Taps in memory of two Deputy Game Wardens who lost their lives in the line of duty 70 years ago.

About 60 people were in attendance Saturday morning at a ceremony honoring Saratoga Deputy Game Warden Don Simpson and Rawlins Deputy Game Warden William Lakanen. Simpson and Lakanen were killed by Johann Malten, a miner and trapper living near Divide Peak in the Sierra Madres, on Oct. 31, 1945.

Since relatively little is known about Simpson and Lakanen the ceremony focused on the hazards of being a Game Warden and the cooperative efforts to create and place the memorial to the men.

The U.S. Forest Service and the Wyoming Game and Fish Department worked together on the memorial as the sign commemorating Simpson and Lakanen is adjacent to the Jack Creek Guard on Forest Road 452. The site of the murders is on Forest Service lands about three miles west of the memorial's location.

Bill Robertson, Greybull Game Warden and President of the Wyoming Game Warden's Association led the ceremony from a podium on a hillside in front of United States and Wyoming flags and pictures of the fallen wardens.

"You've been given a special assignment ... that assignment is to tell the story of Wyoming Game Wardens Bill Lakanen and Don Simpson," Robertson said in his opening remarks. He then set the stage of wartime America and what it must have been like to work in a wildlife rich southern Wyoming at the time. Robertson mused about the way the Game Wardens might have felt and things they may have discussed on their fateful drive up to Malten's cabin. Robertson also reminded those gathered about the inherent dangers of being any kind of law enforcement officer.

"The truth is that while all of us enjoy Wyoming's great resources we are blessed with the freedom that we have today. There are a few, and fortunately only a few, that have given their very lives for the protection of that resource and today we want to recognize them for what they have done," Robertson said.

Saratoga Game Warden Biff Burton followed Robertson and echoed the theme that Game Wardens have a rewarding but sometimes dangerous job.

"As we leave and as we enjoy our hunting and fishing, remember the people that make it happen. You know a Game Warden doesn't know what he's walking into when he enters a camp, when he stops a vehicle, when he checks a fisherman," Burton said.

Burton also acknowledged the presence of representatives from local, county, state and federal agencies. Some of those representatives were: retired Game Wardens; Dennis Jaeger, Medicine Bow-Routt National Forests and Thunder Basin National Grassland Forest Supervisor; Melanie Fullman, Brush Creek/Hayden District Ranger; Archie Roybal, Carbon County Undersheriff; John Rutherford, Carbon County Fire Warden; and Homer Beach, Ryan Park Volunteer Fire Department.

Fullman noted that it took about one-and-one-half years of planning and cooperation for the event to come to fruition. Fullman said she hoped the ceremony would " ... be in keeping with what you think the two officers would have appreciated. Something simple, outdoors, a beautiful sunny day and the traditional Wyoming wind they must have appreciated."

Jaeger said, "This is a special event. This a memorial to honor two fallen officers that were trying to do the right thing for the public."

After the ceremony was over Burton said he felt a sense of accomplishment and reward. "I think we opened a lot of peoples eyes and ears to some of the jobs that Game Wardens do and people charged with protecting these resources. Maybe this will remind a few of them about the freedoms we have."