Bruce Wayne Davis

As told by his sister, Jan Kruger, and his mom, Helen Davis

I saw my brother, Bruce, for the last time on the night he died. He and his friend, BILL ADAMSON, were on their way home from a rodeo in Augusta. We met up at my uncle's place in Browning; we were one of a few white people that ran cattle on the reservation in those days. We went up to East Glacier and had steak and lobster for dinner; it was a real treat. We got back to my uncle's ranch around 11 p.m. and Bruce was ready to take off for home at 1:00 that morning. We tried to talk them into staying but he had hay to put up. About six a.m., someone came and said they'd been in an accident.

The accident happened right there at Rocky Ridge, coming down a hill, on Hwy. 89 at mile marker 91. A carload of people coming from the same rodeo came around the curve on the wrong side of the road. Bruce was going to take the ditch on the other side of the road as the ditch on his side was too steep. The other driver must have corrected and Bruce didn't have a chance to correct and they hit. Bill was ejected and killed and Bruce died in the vehicle. He was pushed into the gas tank and it caught on fire. Two people in the other vehicle were also killed. There were four crosses on the highway but none of them remain.

Bruce was the second of three sons and he had three sisters. He wanted to work in agriculture and with animals. He was a friend to everybody and a willing worker. He liked to play the guitar. He had a Fender guitar and he learned a lot of the old songs from our neighbor, Louis Carroll; songs by Jimmy Horton and Jim Reeves. They played at gatherings and had jam sessions. Bruce was president of the MSU Rodeo Club and student body president of Valier High School during his senior year.

We had gone to Great Falls once, for parts, he and I, and it was after President Kennedy had been there and spoken. He went up on the stage and I said, "How does it make you feel to be somewhere the President has been?" "You know," Bruce replied, "he has to go to the bathroom just like the rest of us." That's just the way Bruce viewed life; you treated people like you wanted to be treated.

June 14, 1947 - 

June 30, 1969