Thomas Colwell Horn
Thomas Colwell Horn, 92, passed suddenly and peacefully from this world on Thursday, May 30, 1996, at his home in Boise.
Funeral services will be held at 11 a.m. Tuesday, June 4, at Summers Funeral Homes, Boise Chapel. Burial will be in Pioneer Cemetery.
He was born March 22, 1904, near Edmond, Oklahoma Territory, son of Martin Horn and Nellie Colwell Horn. They moved west to Kelso, Washington, in 1908. At age 14, Tom became the youngest, and last, licensed steam engineer in the state of Montana, driving a steam tractor to break virgin prairie, helping his uncle establish a wheat ranch near Lewiston, Montana.
Tom's early career included two years as the first motorcycle officer for the Longview, Washington Police Department. In 1933, he was appointed Game Protector for Kelso District of Washington State Fish and Game Department which positioned him for a career as a pioneer in environmental and wildlife conservation.
In 1936, Tom was appointed Deputy U.S. Game Management Agent for the Bureau of Biological Survey. He later transferred to the National Wildlife Refuge division of the bureau, and became the first Refuge Manager at Deer Flat National Wildlife Refuge (NWR), near Nampa, Idaho.
Shortly after his assignment as Refuge Manager at Medicine Lake NWR in Montana, Tom married Helen M. Dodge, of Boise, in September of 1940. Later transfers took them to the Fort Peck Game Range (now Charles M. Russell NWR) in Montana, Stillwater NWR near Fallon, Nevada, and Tulelake, California, where Tom managed the five Klamath Basin National Wildlife Refuges. This unusual post in the national refuge system included a sharecropping program to farm 10,000 acres of barley to provide food for the fall migration of several million ducks and geese, as well as building and maintenance of the usual roads, dams, dike, and service buildings, wildlife and habitat management, and law enforcement.
In 1958, Tom became Assistant Refuge Supervisor in the Fish & Wildlife Service's Region 1 headquarters, Portland, Oregon. In 1960 he was transferred to the Region 5 New England headquarters in Boston, Massachusetts, where as Regional Refuge Supervisor he oversaw the final realization of Cape Cod National Seashore in Massachusetts and Great Swamp NWR in New York.
Tom retired in 1971, freeing the couple to travel widely before taking up permanent residence in Boise in 1992.
Every day of his life Tom Horn could be heard to say "I am the luckiest man on earth!" He translated his inborn joy of living into a creative, adventurous, rich and family-centered life that included fine wood and metal working, photography and silversmithing.
He is survived by his beloved wife, Helen; daughters, Nancy Dallaire of Massachusetts and Margery Mitchell of Hawaii; seven grandchildren and five great grandchildren. They loved him deeply, are grateful for his easy and graceful passing and will miss him profoundly.
