Linda Sue Kruse

Linda Sue Dickinson Kruse

Services for Linda Sue Dickinson Kruse will be held at 10 a.m. Thursday, Jan. 11, at St. Leo's Catholic Church in Lusk with Father Patrick Shea officiating. Interment will be at the family ranch following a private ceremony.

Linda died Jan. 8, 1996, at her family home after a long illness. She was born June 27, 1950, in Scottsbluff, Neb., the oldest child of Laurel E. and Mary C. (Gerhard) Dickinson.

She grew up on a farm near Minatare, Neb., attending the local rural school until her eighth grade year, when she transferred to Scottsbluff. She graduated from Scottsbluff High School in 1968.

She graduated from the University of Wyoming in 1972 with a Bachelor of Science degree in animal science. During her matriculation, she was a member of the Agricultural Council, the Ag Club and Collegiate 4-H, for which she served as president in 1971. She was a member of four nationally competitive agricultural judging teams at UW: the dairy cattle team, the dairy products team, the livestock judging team and the meats judging team. She met her husband, Jim, at UW where they shared a livestock judging class and were team members of the meats judging team which placed first in the Pacific International Livestock Exposition in 1971. Linda placed second high individual in the pork competition. She was on the Dean's Honor Roll at UW in 1972, and was a life member of the UW Alumni Association.

In 1973 she was selected Outstanding Young Woman of America. The next year she represented Nebraska as an International Foreign Youth Exchange volunteer for 1-1/2 years in Guatemala, where she lived in a mountain village with a Guatemalan family, teaching 4-H skills, health, sewing, cooking, nutrition, recreation and assisted a male instructor with agricultural programs. In 1976 she became the first female Agricultural Extension Agent in the state of Wyoming and she served Carbon County in that capacity until 1978. During that time she was the president of the Wyoming 4-H Agents Association in 1977 and was first runner-up in the Rawlins Business and Professional Women's Outstanding Young Career Woman in 1978. She was the president of the Lusk Business and Professional Women in 1982, and a district director of the organization from 1982-1983.

Linda and James Kruse of Lance Creek were married March 18, 1978. Two sons were born to the couple: James on March 20, 1979, and Joseph on Aug. 4, 1981.

During her years in Niobrara County, she was a school volunteer and substitute teacher in the district from the time her children entered the school system. She was president of the Lance Creek School Association for several years and volunteered as a Spanish interpreter for Spanish-speaking families in the school.

She was a member of St. Leo's Catholic Church, where she served on the Lusk Council of Catholic Women as secretary from 1985-1987; as vice-president 1987-1989, and as president from 1989-1990. She was secretary of the St. Leo's Catholic Church Parish Council, and taught Catholic Christian Doctrine classes in 1987 and from 1993-1995. She was a Eucharistic minister at her church as well.

Linda was a 14 year 4-H leader in Niobrara County, and assumed the leadership of the Junior Leader Club in 1984 which she continued until her death. In that capacity she became a board member of the Niobrara Rural Support Network, which assisted agricultural families experiencing the dual financial stresses of low Ag prices and drought foreclosures, techniques she uses to help her junior leaders cope with the family pressures those financial problems incur on young people. She judged 4-H exhibits for several years at the Wyoming State Fair. In 1988 she was selected both Niobrara County and Wyoming Outstanding Woman 4-H Leader. She served as Wyoming LABO director in 1994 and 1995, a program that brought Japanese youngsters to rural Wyoming ranches for a month each summer.

She listed her occupation as rancher, a full partner and participant in the family business. She was a member of the Wyoming Stockgrowers' Association and the National Cattlemen's Association. Her commitment to the independent survival of Wyoming Agriculture caused her to become one of the founders of the Niobrara Resources Association. It was also a primary reason she elected to become a member of Class 4 of the Leadership Education and Development program (LEAD), a two-year development program training rural leaders to speak out on behalf of Wyoming Agriculture. In 1993 her class visited agricultural districts in a number of European countries, including Romania and France.

She operated a home-based sewing business in which she made baby quilts and specialty items. She was a cast member of the Legend of Rawhide and a member of the Republican Women.

She is survived by her husband, Jim, and her sons, James and Joe, of the family home; her mother, Mary Dickinson, and her brother, Robert Dickinson, both of Minatare, Neb.; two sisters - Pati Ryan and her husband, Don, of New Prague, Minn., and Mary Ann Davis and her husband, Mike, of Burlington, Colo.; four nieces and two nephews. She was preceded in death by her father and a sister, Barbara.

Rosary services will be at St. Leo's Church at 7 p.m. Wednesday, Jan 10. The Thursday morning mass will be followed by coffee in the church basement. Since the Sagebrush Flower Shop is closed for vacation, Wagner's Floral in Torrington will be handling floral arrangements.

The family requests no memorials in lieu of community generosity to save her life during her treatments in Mexico. However, two scholarships have been established in her honor. People who wish to send a memorial may address it to either the Niobrara County Junior Leader Club or the Linda Kruse LABO Scholarship, Box 210, Lusk.

Bader Funeral Home of Lusk is in charge of arrangements.

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