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Kirk Alexander was a rancher. A father, a husband, a community member. He was honest and gentle.

“He was a rancher. It’s something he loved to do. He did it all his life. He was a father. He was a grandfather,” said Karen Alexander, Kirk Alexander’s daughter.

“He was just a great man,” she added.

Alexander passed away Sunday, Nov. 30, in Montrose. He was 98.

The Alexander family has been in San Miguel County since the early 1800s. Kirk Alexander was born in 1927 at home in what is now Lawson Hill.

“Right by the cottonwood there, there is a bunch of rocks. It’s the rock foundation for the house that he was born in,” said Dave Alexander, Kirk’s son.

Before long, he started running sheep on Wilson Mesa.

“When he was 12, 13 years old he would get on his horse here in Norwood, by himself, and he would ride to Placerville where he had some relation, I think it was an aunt that lived there in Placerville. Then on to Wilson Mesa the next day,” said Dave Alexander. “It took him two days to ride up there. He would stay with the sheep herder with the sheep most all the summer.”

After growing up, Kirk Alexander married his beloved Kathleen, known as Kay. They were married for 76 years and had three children.

Alexander was kind, compassionate, and instilled in his children a strong work ethic.

“He never felt like it was a pat on the back, that’s just the way you did,” Karen said.

Dave remembered going to sheep camp with his father.

“Kids would get in the pickup and we’d stop in Sawpit and we always got a pop and a candy bar in Sawpit and go on to the mesa. We’d go with him, especially I, would go with him when he took a pack string into Bear Creek and things like that. It was just unbelieve being able to do a lot of that,” Dave said.

One time, in August, he remembers moving sheep camp over Wasatch into La Junta Basin.

“There was about 6 to 8 inches of snow when we got over into La Junta to try to put a camp in there. It was really interesting. It was something else. You didn’t cry and go home. You went right along and that’s just the way it was,” he said.

Talk to Dave and Karen, and their memories of their father are of a hard-working family man.

“He was a very strong man. We rode together a lot. We worked together a lot as a family,” Karen said. “I remember always being together, always doing something. Our vacations were basically either herding sheep or herding cows or going up on the mesa, up on Wilson Mesa. We were always together doing something like that. Our play time was maybe a time or two that we got to go to Trout Lake and go fishing, but the rest of it we worked.”

Alexander also gave back to the community. He served on the school board and the water commission, and he was a member of the Federal Land Bank and the Woolgrowers Association. He also served in the U.S. Army, stationed in Japan.

“He was always for the community, and everything he could do to help the community. His family came first all the time. Trying to make a living. A lot of times it was tough. A lot of times you didn’t have everything everybody else did. But we had a good life and it was great,” Dave said.

“He was a very smart man. He was a very common sense, humble man. I always looked to him for answers. ‘Dad, what do you think about this?’ and he always had the best common sense, down to earth, this is the way it is, which I appreciated that. It wasn’t any ifs, ands, or buts about it. He was always very matter of fact, knew exactly what he was thinking, and how he was thinking, and what he wanted to do and when he wanted to do it. Now it’s like ‘who am I going to look to?’” Karen added.

Put simply, Alexander was one of the good ones.

“Couldn’t have been a kinder man. Everyone liked him. He could go down to the post office and he’d be standing there visiting for hours. Somebody would come by and he’d chat about this, or somebody would come down and he’d chat about that. He didn’t know a stranger. He was always warm and friendly, and had a strong handshake,” Karen remembered. “He was one of the good ones”.

A funeral for Kirk Alexander will be held Saturday, Dec. 13, at 11 a.m. at Crippin Funeral Home in Montrose. He will be laid to rest at the cemetery in Norwood.

Kirk Alexander is survived by his wife, Kay; his children, Karen, David, and Kerry; seven grandchildren; and 10 great-grandchildren.

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In 2024, Dilyn Alexander, Kirk Alexander’s great-granddaughter, interviewed Kirk and his wife, Kay, about growing up as a rancher in Colorado. The interview was part of an oral history project with Colorado State University.