Family, friends and former colleagues mourn the loss of renowned game warden Gary Rankin

Feb. 2—"Know all that makes up our natural resources and the land on which it thrives. Know the people who share it and keep them as happy as you can. Keep the outlaws guessing, give honest people the benefit of the doubt and hold no mercy for crooks." — International game warden motto

LARIMORE, N.D. — During his 36-year career as a district game warden for the North Dakota Game and Fish Department, Gary Rankin developed a reputation as one of the most well-liked and well-respected people in eastern North Dakota outdoors circles.

Rankin, of Larimore, died Wednesday, Jan. 31; he was 72 years old.

Soft-spoken yet firm, Rankin did his job effectively and fairly, those who knew him say. From the time he became district game warden at Larimore in 1977

until he retired in May 2013,

Rankin was unwavering in his approach to law enforcement.

His work area covered about 3,000 square miles in an area that included Grand Forks County and parts of Traill, Steele, Griggs, Walsh and Nelson counties.

"He just treated people fairly and was willing to give every honest guy a break, which we all try to emulate," said Paul Freeman, Northeast North Dakota game warden supervisor for the Game and Fish Department in Devils Lake. "He did a job that's better than most. We all strive for fairness and leaving the world a better place, and Gary actually did."

Freeman shared the warden's motto at the top of this story, which he says sums up Rankin's career. Freeman was Rankin's supervisor for the final 10 years of the Larimore warden's career.

"He was just a good guy all the way around," Freeman said. "You didn't meet people that had a bad word to say about Gary, which is really odd in law enforcement."

Joe Solseng, of rural Grand Forks, an avid outdoorsman who spent more than 30 years as a North Dakota hunter education instructor, said he knew Rankin for the better part of four decades and considered him a close friend.

Besides their association through hunter education, Solseng said he knew Rankin through encounters as a sportsman and a landowner. The game warden's personality made him popular with everyone who knew him, Solseng said.

"He was soft-spoken, not outwardly excitable, at least, and he was a fair man," Solseng said. "I was just talking to a friend of mine, and he had the highest compliment I think any one of us could get. He said Gary was a good man. And if we can all live life like that, that's pretty good."

Marty Egeland, education supervisor for the North Dakota Game and Fish Department in Bismarck, spent the early years of his career as a district game warden, working as an outreach biologist in Grand Forks from 2001 until 2017, when he took the education job in Bismarck.

He first met Rankin in 1996.

"I rode along with him as a student at UND," Egeland said. "And from the get-go, a more helpful person I've never met. He's one of the few people who could give somebody a ticket, and they'd be smiling and shaking hands when they're done.

"I have never met a finer human being ... just a salt of the earth kind of guy."

While most people never heard Rankin raise his voice, Freeman recalls one incident that occurred when he was stationed in Walhalla, North Dakota, before becoming the Devils Lake warden supervisor.

The violation occurred in Freeman's Walhalla work area but involved a suspect who lived in Rankin's work area, so the two wardens collaborated on the case.

"We went to his house and the guy continued to (lie) and Gary got tired of it," Freeman said. "He raised his voice a little bit and said a word you don't say on television — and by golly, the confession was promptly thereafter.

"Heck, I was ready to confess," Freeman added with a laugh.

Rankin's reputation for kindness extended beyond his career as a game warden. He also spent several years as a volunteer throwing coach for the Larimore High School track team.

Rich Juarez, who graduated from Larimore High School in 2013, recalls Rankin coming up and "nagging" him to join track and field for throwing events.

It sounded boring, said Juarez, a freshman at the time, but he decided to give it a shot. The first day of practice, Rankin brought out a single playing card from a deck and told Juarez to throw it as hard as he could.

"I threw it, it didn't go anywhere, and he showed me a technique to throw it and (the card) went down the hallway," Juarez said. "And for me, that's stuck with me to this day. It's not about how strong you are, how physically gifted you are, it's about the technique you use."

Juarez went on to excel in track over the next four years, winning the school's Most Valuable Track Athlete on multiple occasions, largely because of Rankin's encouragement.

Knowing he came from a single-parent family, Juarez said Rankin also hired him to help shingle a shed and chop wood for much-needed income. Today, Juarez is an investigator with the Ramsey County Narcotics Task Force Group in Devils Lake and will soon take a new job as a criminal investigator with the Towner County Sheriff's Office in Cando, North Dakota.

"He's truly probably the only father figure I had growing up," Juarez said. "He taught me to be a man. The impact he had on my life is the same impact I want to have on other people's lives — especially troubled juveniles, things like that.

"He's truly the best man that I've ever met and ever will meet. ... Make it known that that guy saved my life."

That's just the way her dad was, said Rankin's daughter, Erin Rankin, of Hastings, Minnesota. He was always doing for others, she said.

"I never really realized how much because he never made it a big deal," she said. "He didn't boast, or even talk much about the acts of kindness and service he provided to others. My dad quietly did so many things and expected no thanks or recognition."

Erin, who graduated from Larimore High School in 2004, also excelled in track, learning to throw the discus from her dad when she was 8 years old. Even after one of her "wayward throws" demolished the family car's tail light, he didn't give up on her, Erin recalls.

"In high school, he would get up with me and lift weights before school and would be there to coach me and the other throwers after school — which is something he did for free," Erin said. "He would stay with me for hours. My mom and dad went to basically every sporting event I participated in, which as a full-time working parent myself now, I can't imagine how they did it.

"The same person who taught my sister and me to trap muskrats and throw a discus also taught us how to knit and bake bread. He's the reason I now like talk radio and gardening."

Rankin is survived by his wife, Susan, Larimore; children, Emily Rankin (Ben Wermerskirchen), of Waterloo, Belgium; William Rankin, of Grand Forks; Erin Rankin (Brandon Brayfield), of Hastings; and grandchildren Silas Brayfield, Ilona Wermerskirchen, Esme Brayfield and Lukas Wermerskirchen.

A funeral is set for 2 p.m. Monday, Feb. 19, at Our Savior's Lutheran Church in Larimore.