Service Details
There will not be a funeral. In honor of Ron's wishes, his ashes will be buried in the mountains in a private family ceremony.
Funeral Company
Bolender Funeral Chapel
The Story
Ronald Wayne Bradford, 86, passed peacefully from this life to the next on July 14, 2020 at Good Samaritan Loveland Village, in the Heritage Square memory care unit where he lived since 2015.
Ron, the 3rd of 6 children, was born in Earlville, Illinois on 8/25/1933 to Dwight Bradford and Clair Billington Bradford. The family moved to Michigan in 1934. In 1946, they moved to a cattle ranch in Hill City, South Dakota where Ron lived the life of a true cowboy. In 1950, the family moved back to Michigan, where he graduated from Muskegon High School in 1951.
Ron served in the US Air Force as an Armaments Mechanic from 1951 -1955. He was stationed in Korea in 1952-53 and was honorably discharged in 1955. He married Donna King on 2/2/1968. They made their home in Fort Collins, CO with her two children, Kim, and Troy. Ron worked in accounts receivable as a Control Specialist from 1973 until his retirement from Poudre Valley Hospital, Fort Collins, CO in 1998.
Ron was a member of Meadowlark Church of Christ since 1968 where he served as treasurer for 10 years. For many years he was the secretary for the Weld Country Fish and Game Association. He also served on the Poudre Valley Hospital board and was instrumental in helping implement better employee benefits.
Ron was an avid outdoorsman and always a cowboy at heart. He won many 1st place awards in Benchrest Rifle shooting competitions. He was a hunter, fisherman, hiker, boater, water skier, motorcyclist, bicyclist, and adventurer. He was a “sharpshooter” billiards player, a stone-faced poker player, and won many bowling league competitions. He also loved listening to music, especially cowboy songs, and swinging to the beat.
Ron had a sweet, caring, and affectionate spirit with a delightfully wry sense of humor that never left him. He will be greatly missed and remembered often with smiles and tears by his family, friends, and care givers.
In passing Ron joins his wife Donna, his parents, an infant brother, his sisters Marilyn and Karen, his favorite pet dogs, Lady and Sugar-Baby, and his favorite horse, Sugar. He is survived by two stepchildren, three step-grandchildren, his sisters Beverly and Wanda, and several nieces and nephews.
Donations may be made on Ron's behalf to Good Samaritan Loveland Village or The Colorado Alzheimer's Association.
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Ron played so many roles in my life throughout the years. He married my mom when I was eight. He loved her dearly. That was always obvious. In his later years he told me often that the best decision of his life was marrying Donna.
Kim EngellHe bought me my first guitar and he was always my biggest music fan.
The last 10 years of his life, as Alzheimer's slowly took his memories, he and I bonded
in a way we never had previously. It was extraordinarily difficult to deal with the complications of that disease, but there were some silver linings too. I will remember playing billiards together everyday for 3 years, until he could no longer remember how to play. There were long walks with the dogs and lot's of coffee drinking together. I loved his sense of humor.
I want to thank all of his caregivers at Good Samaritan for their kindness and for falling in love with him as if he was part of their family. Not once in the 5 years he was in Memory Care did I worry about his well being.
He is now reunited with the love of his life and free to ride the wide open spaces of heaven, never to be fenced in again.
He was my favorite cowboy - Kim
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