Guest Posts on County 10 are provided by contributors and the opinions, thoughts, and comments within are their own and may not necessarily reflect those of County 10.
When I think of him, I can only smile. That’s the universal reaction we have to someone who is not only a friend and a fellow traveler, but someone who has become one with the place where they were born.
My friend, a man who was quick with a joke, always had a kind word and an infectious sense of humor, Richard Haun, passed away early last Monday.
Richard often told me how he’d never strayed very far from home in his life. Aside from a short time as a small child when his parents briefly farmed in Missouri Valley, he spent his days on his farm at the north end of North 8th West.
I was thinking of Richard and the impact he had on his community on an early morning walk last week. The words of filmmaker Ken Burns came to mind while thinking of how Richard never moved more than three miles from the home he grew up in.
In the opening narration of Burns PBS classic, The Civil War, he describes what was once the standard for Americans, to remain in one place.
“Men who had never strayed 20 miles from their own front doors now found themselves soldiers in great armies, fighting epic battles hundreds of miles from home. They knew they were making history, and it was the greatest adventure of their lives.”
Some may think it a stretch to compare a farmer’s life with those that fought at Shilo, Antietam, and Gettysburg, but the contribution Richard made to Riverton, to Fremont County, and across the state is immeasurable.
Richard Haun was a farmer, a farmer who raised cattle as well.
He rode the bus to school when North 8th West was a gravel road with my mom and aunt Nellie in the 1950s, often teasing both of them about how much older they were than he was, but in reality, it was just a few years.
Richard was famous for his little stories, stories that always had a point in the many meetings he attended. Meetings were part of his life. He served as an elder at Trinity Lutheran Church for almost half a century, where he regularly paid visits to the congregational members in his care, attended church every Sunday, and made it to every performance, dinner, or fundraiser. He walked the walk.
He was a member of the High Plains Power Board, the Wyoming Rural Electric Association, the Fremont County Cattlemen’s Association, and the Riverton FFA Advisory Board. He was busy.
But he was never too busy to stop and talk.
He could relate to almost any situation with a funny story or a quick joke, lightening the atmosphere at sometimes contentious meetings.
He was busy on the farm as well.
He earned his way in life through hard work, wise business deals, and good judgement. At just 28-years-old, he purchased his first farm, a 77-acre parcel on North 8th West. Over the years he expanded it into one of the finest farms in all of Fremont County.
Richard loved Hereford cattle and buffalo. Many people remember sitting with him, talking about his herd of prized Herefords. He was always experimenting with his cattle, trying to get the perfect combination of red and white that make Herefords such striking animals.
When the marketing experts started the craze for Black Angus beef, Richard watched the market. He switched his beloved Herefords to Angus when the price at the sale barn for black cattle was higher than his Herefords.
Though he switched to Angus, like many ranchers, he knew it was all marketing and that there was little difference in the quality of beef.
“Take the hide off and hang the carcass of a Hereford steer next to an Angus, and you can’t tell the difference,” Richard often said.
With a bit of mischief always just below the surface, Richard had a heart of gold.
My wife Sue’s maiden name was Hahn, spelled different than Richard’s last name of Haun, but he always played it up with this line on Sunday mornings as we shook hands. “Hi cousin,” Richard would say to Sue. It never got old.
Richard had some interesting hobbies, and all of them were ag-related.
His collection of John Deere tractors filled the area west of his and Janice’s home. From “Poppin’ Johnnies” two-cylinder A, B, D, G, and H models to slightly more modern 60 and 70 series John Deere tractors, Richard had dozens of them.
A more animated hobby came with his herd of American Bison, buffalo to most of us. On one section of their farm, Richard had highway guard rails lining a feedlot. “Buffalo proof,” he often said when people asked about them.
Inside the feedlot were his prized buffalo bulls, cows, and calves. Many youth groups, school field trips along with the children and grandchildren of his many friends came out to look at the buffalo as Richard tossed a little hay or just told a few stories about them.
Richard had boundaries, even for family and friends. He had a pond on the place that offered perfect waterfowl hunting. We’d ask permission each year to hunt, and he’d gladly give it, but one year, he said no. Someone had trashed the area, and he closed it. His explanation made sense, “I can’t just open it to some and not to others,” he said. “So, I’ll just close it to everyone.”
While tractors, civic responsibilities, cattle, corn, barley, alfalfa and buffalo filled his life, none of them were the most important to Richard, that honor came with his family.
Janice, his wife of 65 years remained his high school sweetheart through the years. Their three children, Kent, Sheila and Cindy were his pride and joy, exceeded only by his grandchildren.
If you attended local sporting events, you often spotted Richard and Janice in the stands. He was an avid Wolverine football, basketball and wrestling fan, but we often talked at Shoshoni, Wind River and Wyoming Indian games as well.
Establishing roots and becoming one with the land, the community, and the people around you are vanishing in our transient modern world. Many people have dozens of different jobs, live in dozens of different communities, and barely know anyone around them.
Richard Haun was a throwback to simpler times, when a handshake was as binding as a thousand-page legal document, and man’s word was his covenant. What you saw is what you got with Richard, no embellishments, just a strong handshake, a grin, and a quick quip from a man who never knew a stranger.
Hundreds of us have heard him say this, but reading his obituary it was brought back to me.
“I sure didn’t make it very far,” Richard said. “I was born, grew up, built a home, and the cemetery were all within a three-mile radius.”
Thanks for the friendship.