You probably didn’t know Vern Frederick. He was a quiet, humble rancher/farmer from down near Flasher, N.D.,  (one of the best town names ever), a big, strong, hard-working  man, dedicated to his loving wife, Bonnie, a polio victim tied to a wheelchair most of her adult life, whose farming operation was always on the cutting edge of the latest techniques suggested by his alma mater, North Dakota State University..

My friend, Jeff Weispfenning, and I met Vern 45 years ago, when Jeff and I were working for North Dakota Agriculture Commissioner Myron Just, and Myron appointed Vern to one of his advisory committees, affectionately known as the Family Farm Committee. Vern’s place was the epitome of a Family Farm. I think, today, it is in its fifth or sixth generation.

Vern invited Jeff and me down to hunt pheasants at his place. We went. And we’ve been going ever since.

Vern Frederick’s farm was Pheasant Heaven. Acres and acres of corn, usually picked by the time we got there in the fall, where the pheasants ate. Tall CRP fields where the pheasants took their afternoon naps. Tree rows where the pheasants hid. And wandering through his 2,000 or so acres, Louse Creek, with its high banks and deep brush, and the old Mandan to Mott Line railroad trestle, now long-abandoned, where we could walk above the dogs blasting through the brush below, flushing or pointing roosters. It was, and is, some of the best pheasant habitat God ever put on this earth.

I’m pretty sure we hunted there more than a hundred times in those 45 years. Maybe closer to 150. And we took many friends. Gov. George Sinner went with us, and he had a memorable day when he slipped and fell partway into the creek. Attorney General Nick Spaeth came with us once. We took Tony Dean there and he filmed one of his outdoors shows. And when I was North Dakota Tourism director, I took a whole bunch of outdoors writers who wrote stories about Pheasant Heaven for magazines like Outdoor Life and Sports Afield.

And one of Vern’s favorite guests: Tweed Roosevelt, great-grandson of President Theodore Roosevelt. Vern would proudly show us the homestead papers for the place, signed by TR himself. That’s how long the farm has been in the Frederick family.

It was Tweed’s favorite place to hunt on his annual fall trip to North Dakota. We’d stop at the house, knock on the door, be greeted by Vern and Bonnie, snap a photo or two (one of my favorites was the day Bonnie was still in her flannel nightgown, so she took the photo) and then head for a creek bottom or cornfield and usually shoot a limit of roosters.

Sometimes, if we finished early, Vern would join us for lunch in Flasher. Often we left a rooster or two on his doorstep. Vern generally didn’t hunt with us because fall was a pretty busy time on the Frederick farm. As we hunted, we’d see him on a tractor or combine or herding cows in his pickup.  But he made an exception when Tweed came. He’d grab his trusty single-shot 12 gauge and a few shells and walk the cornfields with us.

In later years, Vern had health problems, and he and Bonnie moved to an assisted living facility in Mandan, but Vern made his weekly trips to the farm, 40 miles south, to help his son, Wes, with farm chores, especially during spring and fall planting and harvesting seasons.

Jeff and I had lunch with him at a cafe down the road from his apartment not so long ago, but I hadn’t seen him in a while, and I read of his passing in the paper Thursday morning. Wes said he‘d suffered through a year of health problems, in and out of hospitals and nursing homes, and last week, with the family at his side, looked up and said, “That’s enough,” and closed his eyes for the last time.

We’ll have a funeral for him this coming week. I suppose they’ll put a suit on him, which will be the first time I’ve ever seen him dressed that way. I kind of wish they’d dress him in his old green coveralls and lace-up boots, which is how I saw him almost every time our paths crossed down there on Louse Creek.

Rest in peace, old friend. You’ve earned it.