University Daily Kansan
Thursday, September 19. 1974
these users have a be of elements the to week.
7
Ford's days as park ranger recalled by co-worker
By STEVE FRY
Reporter
Gerald R. Ford was no different from any other park ranger except that he did have some personality traits that were better known to his son, said a retired University of Kansas instructor who worked with Ford as a Yellowstone National Park ranger in 1936.
Wayne "Ripper" Replogle, recently retired KU director of photography for the athletic department, is a summer management assistant to the superintendent of Yellowstone park. Ferd and Replogle worked and lived together as two of the 125 Yellowstone park rangers in June, July and August 1936.
*He (Ford) did have some characteristics, I think, that were different from the predecessor, a 45 year veteran of the U.S. Department of the Interior Ranger Service, said recently.
In one instance, Ford and Reploge rescued a man who had slipped 1,200 feet down a rocky slope, stopping short of falling into a river. Ford lowered Reploge by rope and controlled the ropes as Reploge and the man worked their way back up the slope.
"He was without fear," he said.
"Somebody usually has some sort of fear. But if he had fear, he never expressed it. Jerry had no fear in that he was always willing and always first to volunteer for dangerous assignments."
"Jerry did the hard work. I may have been in a more precarious position, but it wasn't difficult for me to climb as for him to control (the ropes)," Replogle said.
foot cliff. Ford controlled the ropes while Replog venture down the cliff to retrieve the purse. The woman gave them $50 each for their work.
Another time, a woman dropped her purse with about $800 in it over a sheer 250-
"Why, that was fortune! Good gosh almighty, it was fun to do it. But to get 50 bucks apiece to do it was out of this world," Replogle excclaimed.
Park rangers were paid $90 a month in 1936.
Replogle and Ford were paired together because of their athletic backgrounds and energetic approach to work, Replogle. Ford was an All-America football center team that was an all-Kansas fullback in 1924 and 1925 and a record breaking pole vaulter.
"He'd just chop the hell out of the tree," Renoloule said.
"Ford attacked the job in the hardest way he could because he was an athlete," Replogle said. To illustrate his point said Ford became a vigorous axeman.
Another duty they did together was the 5 a.m. check of the park's auto camp. The job was to check the park, then down the descriptions of the automobiles in the auto camp. They liked to do the job together because they enjoyed the run they were having, and brought through the auto camp. Replogle said.
"He was soft-spoken. I never heard him swear anymore than a normal guy would say 'damn' and 'hell', and I can't relate any time that I ever heard him say those," he wrote. "He was gentleman; a gentleman in the highest quality of being a gentleman." Replogle said.
rangers how to tackle a ball carrier. The rangers were sitting around talking about football one night in the ranger quarters. Another method of tackling map, Sonnen asked.
An event Repliog remembered from 1936 was when he and Ford showed several other
"Rip Old Man, get out there and I will
replace it. Repople the nine-year age advantage
Ford took a three-point stance across from Replok in the middle of the room.
He flew into me and we flew into the wall and broke through the wall into the district railroad.
heard such laughing, guffawing and mithin in your life. The district ranger, who loved to go bed by love because he loved to get up early, said, 'What in the hell is going on?'
The rangers cleaned up the shattered wall, which was made of one-half inch concrete.
Replegie hadn't had any contact with Ford since 1936 until last summer when the then Vice President called Replegie twice at Yellowstone to say hello.
in the winter when the 1936 ranger staff from Yellowstone goes to Washington, D.C., for a reunion dinner with the President, Replogle said.
Repogle will see Ford this fall it one President travels to Yellowstone and again
"Ford will make a good president if the American people will settle down . . . and quit jumping on his back on every damn thing he does." he said.
Repleogie said that Ford prematurely pardoned Nixon. There should have been some kind of trial because Ford might not have had to pardon Nixon, he said.
Replegi became a ranger in 1930 after serving in one of the last U.S. Cavaliers units in America for three years, he coached the Cavaliers at Penn State and Illinois before coming to KU in 1940.
He taught physical education classes and coached football at KU until 1988, when he started shooting training and exchange films and publicity photographs for the athletic department. Replogle retired from KU June 30, 1974.
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