Melvin Bucky Garrison
By Robert Fleenor, Creek Co Warden

Thirty years ago this past December, the Oklahoma Department of Wildlife lost one of their own in the person of Melvin "Bucky" Garrison. Bucky was a Game Ranger assigned to Okmulgee County and had only been a Game Ranger for about 7 months when he died.

On the afternoon of December 27, 1971, Bucky told his wife, Marie, that he was going out to work and check some duck hunters in the area and that he would return late that night. Marie went to bed later that evening, thinking Bucky must have been busy working either duck and or deer hunters. She awoke at about 5 a.m. the next morning, realizing Bucky had not returned home, and immediately phoned then District Chief Elmer Cathron to voice her concerns. Elmer then phoned Ranger Bullet Burns of Eufaula, who had been frequently working with Bucky, and they began to search for Bucky's state truck and found it in short order near Tiger Mountain and the Deep Fork River arm of Lake Eufaula. At that time, Chief Cathron called in a large number of Rangers assigned to the 2nd District, who then initiated a search for Bucky,beginning where his truck was parked. Bucky's uniform boots were inside his truck, so the Rangers surmised that he must have put on his waders and gone out into the lake. The Oklahoma Highway Patrol and the Okmulgee County Sheriff Department also assisted in the search of the area.

The search party could see Bucky's foot prints as they entered the shallow backwater and could follow them for a distance from the truck. As the Rangers waded the fairly shallow water, Ranger Bullet Burns spotted a flashlight floating in the muddy water. Just a short distance from the flashlight, Ranger Delbert Rozell bumped into Bucky's body in about 3 feet of water.The Rangers on the scene said Bucky was in uniform and had indeed been wearing waders, which were found to be down around his knees. Retired Ranger Tabor Myers, who lives in Wagoner, told me that there was something that seemed out of place when they found Bucky, and that was the fact that his duty jacket seemed bunched or wadded up at the collar behind his neck, like it had been grabbed or held. This was later to fuel speculation that Bucky's untimely death may not necessarily have been an accident at all. Bucky's body was taken to Tulsa for an autopsy at Hillcrest Medical Center to attempt to find an actual cause of death. The pathologist who performed the autopsy, Dr. Leo Lowbeer, said there was no indication that foul play was involved in Bucky's demise. Dr. Lowbeer was quoted as saying that, "Ranger Garrison had waded into deep lake waters and that he was wearing rubber waders of the type that don't extend over the chest:' Dr. Lowbeer further stated that, "He got in deep water and the waders filled and pulled him down 2nd he couldn't surface:"

The Rangers who worked the Okmulgee and McIntosh County area were very skeptical about the autopsy results. What particularly bothered the Rangers was the fact that Bucky's shotgun, a Browning A-5, was never found. Retired District Chief Elmer Cathron told me that he and his men spent a great deal of time searching for the shotgun that winter. They even searched again after the hot summer weather had evaporated the shallow water out of the area where Bucky was found. Elmer said that a special group of metal detecting enthusiasts from Norman had spent a large amount of time all over the area looking for the gun, to no avail. Rumors were rampant for a number of years as to who may have been possibly responsible for Bucky's loss of life, but nothing substantial was ever unearthed. It is known that the area was frequented by a certain person, or person's who had issued threats upon the life of any Game Ranger encountered in this very rural locale.

Melvin "Bucky" Garrison was born in California in 1946 and spent several years growing up in Wagoner, Oklahoma. He graduated from high school at the Southwestern Bible College in Oklahoma City, and he later attended Northeastern State University in Tahlequah. He was the son of Rev and Mrs. Melvin Garrison and he had a sister, Pearl Ford of Wagoner. Bucky was married to his wife Marie and they had two daughters, Shelley and Sheila, who were 5 and 2 years old at the time of his death.

Several quotes I read in news articles from that time indicated that Bucky was a typical young, eager Game Ranger. He loved his work and seldom took a day off. Bucky was described by fellow Rangers who worked with him those few short months as a young man who was so very proud to be one of us, who took his wildlife enforcement duties seriously, and who felt that he could indeed make a difference. Bucky was also described to me as a young man who loved his wife and family fiercely, respected and loved his parents, and certainly loved his Creator.
A lady named Elga Beller who worked for the district church conference that Rev. Garrison's church was a member of, penned a poem in memory of Bucky after his death. A line from that poem is the epitaph on his gravestone. It reads, "Bucky loved god, he loved his Creation, thus he chose a Game Ranger's life, as his vocation:"

We may never know the exact circumstances of Bucky's untimely death at the age of 25, but we can take solace that he was doing a job that he so loved doing and that he was so proud to-be a Game Ranger.