By Heather Lende
An overflow crowd including former borough officials and peace
officers, clergy, family, and friends from Haines and Klukwan turned out Saturday at the
Port Chilkoot Bible Church to pay last respects to retired Alaska State Trooper Walt
Ormasen.
Ormasen, 81, died in his sleep Dec. 30.
The cause of death was undetermined, but Ormasen was fit and active to
the end. His portrait in "Between Friends," a Canadian coffee table book
published in honor of the United States bicentennial in 1976, could have been taken last
year, friends said.
Ormasen was eulogized as a man of integrity, honor, and compassion.
"He wore the uniform well," said retired U.S. Customs and Border Protection Port
Director Judy Ewald. His blue shirt was always ironed and his Harley Davidson motorcycle
polished.
Neighbor Erwin Hertz said, "Walt looked like a state trooper and
he acted like one. When you saw him, you knew you were in good hands."
From 1969 until his retirement in 1981, Ormasen met the ferry, drove to
the border and back regularly and monitored late-night activity. Resident Jan Hill said
Ormasen was the law when she was young "and we all knew it."
Peggy Ormasen said her husband loved his job and "always put his
trooper duties first and strived to keep the community a safe place."
Neighbor Kevin Reeves said Ormasen’s first impression was that of
"John Wayne on a Harley," but once you got to know him you saw a softer side,
especially when it came to cats. "The only time I saw Walt choke up was over the
death of one of his cats," said pastor Gary Lidholm.
Mayor Fred Shields rode motorcycles with Ormasen. He noted that , in
retirement, Ormasen wasn’t averse to breaking the speed limit, and once clocked him
at 95 mph on his Harley. "Walt was a great guy."
Walter Anson Ormasen was born Sept. 16, 1926 in rural Sandy Creek,
N.Y., to Edith and Thorlife Ormasen, a Norwegian immigrant. He graduated from Sandy Creek
High School and joined the Navy, serving as boatswain’s mate second-class on the
aircraft carrier USS Franklin D. Roosevelt at the end of World War II. He left military
service in 1953.
After the military, he became patrolman for the Watertown police
department and a New York state trooper before taking a job with the border patrol in El
Paso, Texas. He left for California after a supervisor said he hated Yankees, according to
former mayor Mike Case, who also served on the Roosevelt.
He married Peggy Freed in 1959 in Anaheim. Working as a sergeant on the
Los Alamitos police department during the Watts riots in 1965 was so
"devastating" to Ormasen, he found work in Alaska with the Ketchikan police, his
wife said. After graduating from the Alaska state trooper academy, he was posted briefly
in Juneau and came to Haines in early 1969, where he spent the rest of his life.
"Walter loved Haines," Peggy said.
She said that in his retirement he remained a devoted husband, father,
and grandfather, enjoyed coffee in the cafes, ptarmigan hunting, and volunteering at
Rainbow Glacier Camp maintaining the buildings and grounds. He was a Freemason, and a
member of the Elks, the NRA, and the Port Chilkoot Bible Church.
His parents and brother Karl preceded him death.
He is survived by his wife Peggy, son Marc, and daughter Susan Bennett and husband
Bart, and children Kyle, Brittany, Connor and Breanne; daughter Sonja and her husband Dick
Matott; son Arne and his wife Debbie; grandson Nicholas Ormasen and his family, and a
sister, Hilda Clemens, as well as numerous nieces and nephews.
