Marie Kathryn Piper

Marie K. Piper passed away on February 11, 2015 at Regional West Medical Center in Scottsbluff.

Marie Kathryn (Bogner) Piper was born May 9, 1930, at Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital in Hot Springs, S.D., first daughter of Nicholas and Rose (Janzing) Bogner.

Marie grew up on the family homestead ten miles southwest of Oelrichs, S.D. She attended Gilpin Elementary School (Cowboy Lookout School). Marie then graduated from Chadron Prep High School, and Black Hills State College at Spearfish, South Dakota where she received her B.S. in Education and later her Masters degree in Education. Marie taught school in Fall River County, South Dakota and Sioux County, Nebraska.

While teaching at the Round Top School in Sioux County, she met her future husband, Franklin Piper. They were married June 1, 1957 at Hot Springs, S.D. following a honeymoon in Yellowstone and Southern California. They moved to the ranch which was homesteaded by Franklin's parents and the family still owns. She took over the operation and management of the ranch after Franklin's death in 1976. Later she would work on road construction as a flagger and also work at the Sioux County Historical Society Museum in Harrison.

She was presented with the Nebraska Pioneer Farm Award, which recognizes ranches owned by the same family for 100 years in August 2011. She was a member of the Church of the Nativity Altar Society, member of the Highland Extension Club and 4-H Leader for 25 years. She enjoyed playing cards on Mondays at the Senior Citizen Center in Harrison and making food from her favorite recipes. Mostly she enjoyed time with family, especially grandchildren and great grandchildren. She said if she had known how much fun they were she would have skipped children and went straight to grandchildren.

She was preceded in death by her husband, Franklin J Piper and her parents Nicholas and Rose Bogner, Brother, Eugene Bogner, and son-in-law Bruce Roberts.

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