Elmer "Tug" Leo Pullen

Elmer Leo "Tug" Pullen

A funeral service for Elmer L. "Tug" Pullen, 77, of Harrison, who died Wednesday, May 20, 1992, in his home, were held Saturday, May 23, 1992, at 10 a.m. in the Memorial United Methodist Church in Harrison with Revs. Joseph Booker and Robert Todd officiating. Burial was in the Harrison Cemetery with Jones Mortuary of Mitchell in charge of arrangements.

Memorials may be directed to the Harrison Ambulance Fund in care of the family.

Elmer Leo Pullen known to many as "Tug," was born May 30, 1914, on the family homestead west of Fort Robinson, near the Glen Community of Sioux County, the son of Frederick Ernest and Pearl (Mason) Pullen, and received his early education in the Glen School. He moved with his family to the Warbonnet Ranch in 1919 and then in 1925 to a ranch north of Harrison where the Pullen family operated a dairy for several years. He was a graduate of Sioux County High School.

He married Wilma Hack on Dec. 24, 1937 in Rapid City, S.D. and they lived all their married life in Sioux County. Tug and "Bill" as they were known, ranched south of the Glen area until 1973 when he retired and moved to Harrison.

He served as a Sioux County Commissioner for 30 years and was instrumental in the paving of Highway 29 from Mitchell to Harrison. He was a member of the Methodist Church in Harrison, a member and Past master of Sioux Masonic Lodge #277 and a member and Past Worthy Patron of Sioux Chapter #312 Order of Eastern Star, member of the Scottish Rite-32nd Degree Mason in Alliance and a member of the American Quarterhorse Association.

He envisioned the National High School Rodeo coming to Harrison and traveled to Miles City, Mont., and Cheyenne, Wyo., to learn about chute construction in preparation; then he used his equipment to load the steel for the chutes and pens in Colorado and brought it to Harrison where he built the chutes for the National High School Rodeo when it first came to Harrison in 1955.

He was active in the High School Rodeo in Nebraska for many years and had played basketball on school and town teams for 27 years. And Tug loved to work-often 18 hours a day for days on end. He had been fixing fence on a school section the day before his death.

He is survived by his daughters Judee McMurry of Ft. Collins, Colo. and Nancy York of Harrison, by a sister, Leona Dout also of Harrison and eight grandchildren and 15 great-grandchildren.

He was preceded in death by his parents, by his beloved wife, "Bill" (Wilma in 1982) and three brothers, Archie, Alfred "Speck" and Ernest and five sisters, Edna Baker, Verda Barkus, Dorothy Plunkett, Mabel Wasserburger and Fern Jackson.

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