John Sanders

John Michael Sanders—rancher, engineer, veteran, pilot, politician, 1972 Flood survivor—died Friday, March 21.

John was born Dec. 20, 1954, the oldest child of Ken and Betty Sanders and the oldest grandchild of Harley and Maryn Sanders. The family lived on the Green Mountain Ranch along Bogus Jim Road northwest of Rapid City, S.D., and John learned ranching by following his father on his paint pony, Buddy.

The 1972 Black Hills Flood devastated the ranch when the creek tore through the house and barn and the family narrowly escaped its raging waters. John was 17 years old and working as a wrangler for the Canyon Lake Guest Ranch.

When the rain started, he put the horses away and started for home, encountering sheets of water flowing down Rimrock Highway and continuous lightning. Just past Hisega, his car was nearly swept off the road by a wall of water. By the time he got to Johnson Siding, the bridge on Norris Peak Road was washed out, so he wasn’t able to get home. He spent the night helping to rescue people and then stayed with friends. A week later, he borrowed a motorcycle and reached the ranch from the west, not knowing what had happened to the family, nor did they know his fate until they were reunited.

His father started over on a new ranch on Elk Creek north of Ellsworth AFB. John graduated from (Rapid City) Stevens High School in 1973, the first class to attend all four years at the new school, and enlisted in the U.S. Air Force. He chose to become a nuclear weapons specialist, building warheads for the Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles at Malmstrom AFB near Great Falls, Mont., and the bombs carried by the FB-111 “Aardvarks” at Upper Heyford AB in England and contributing to the United States’ victory in the Cold War.

John took time to explore parts of Europe during his assignment in England, including Scotland, Germany, Switzerland and France. He learned to fly gliders at an RAF base, and reached a height gain of 3,500 feet, which was a Silver Height.

When his enlistment was over he returned to the ranch. His parents and three sons formed a partnership, bought a new ranch near Folsom in eastern Custer County, S.D., and added a herd of buffalo. Between spring calving, summer haying and bartending at the Crystal Lounge in downtown Rapid City John took flying lessons and earned his private pilot’s license.

After an accident broke his back, and with the prospect of not being able to walk again, he enrolled at the South Dakota School of Mines & Technology and earned a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering in December 1991. He didn’t let the stairs around campus deter him but deftly maneuvered his wheelchair everywhere he needed to go.

John joined Associated Design Inc. as Vice President and worked with customers to make their concepts reality. His work included design, manufacturing and fabrication of automated and semi-automated assembly machines, precision instruments and many other unique customer needs.

Everyone who knew John knew his passion for politics and his political views. In 1998 he ran in the U.S. Senate Republican primary on a self-funded campaign and received about 10  percent of the votes.

John observed that he had a “reverse mid-life crisis” by selling his motorcycle and sports car, getting married and having children. Thus began his new role of imparting his ranching knowledge to the fifth generation of Sanders.

With the ranch expanding he left his engineering job and turned his attention full time to the ranch. He was responsible for the grazing allotment on the Black Hills National Forest, a relationship that started with his great-grandfather George Sanders in the early 1900s. Their “Bald Horse” permit grew to one of the largest in the Black Hills; stretching from China Gulch in the west to Red Rocks on the western outskirts of Rapid City and Hwy. 44 on the north to Sheridan Lake Road on the south.

He knew this area better than anyone and cared for it as if it was his own; improving fences between pastures, developing water systems and scheduling grazing rotations to ensure the cows had sufficient grass and didn’t overgraze a particular area. While respecting tradition, the Sanders employed technology and other innovations to make their work easier and more efficient: horses were replaced by ATVs to move cattle in the rugged Black Hills and across the vast prairie, electric branding irons were always ready for the next calf, and their elaborate corrals sped up sorting, branding, vaccinating, loading and other work.

Just as the ranch had increased the number of cattle, a large part of the herd was decimated during the October 2013 blizzard and they had to rebuild, in part thanks to the generosity of people in the Black Hills and ranchers in Virginia who donated bred heifers.

In the meantime, he built his family’s house on a secluded ridge in the Black Hills near Pactola, a new house for his mother, and helped Robb Hoffman construct his bunkhouse.

John finally started to take some time for leisure activities over the past couple of years. He finished building his airplane, a Zenith 710 kit, but continued making improvements to it. Last winter, he started building a bigger plane, a Zenith 750. He carefully stored each finished piece in the dining room; he recently started assembling them onto the fuselage and painting it bright red. Although he enjoyed flying the plane, the journey of building it was his real joy. He shared his progress with fellow pilots in Experimental Aircraft Association Chapter 39 and attended several EAA Fly-ins at Oshkosh, Wis., to learn more about building techniques and engines.

He liked driving through the Black Hills in his beautiful blue Mercedes GL 450. At the start of a trip to the Grand Tetons and Yellowstone last summer the car was totaled in an accident, but he was unhurt, which he attributed to the brand’s safety features. He quickly found a replacement and resumed his vacation.

As a member of the Tin City Masons, he helped with their projects that benefit the Hill City, S.D., community.

His constant companions were his loyal Belgian sheepdogs. Bear was his hired ranch hand, expertly and fearlessly finding and guiding cattle. Heidi had two litters of puppies, bringing him endless joy with their antics.

John is survived by his wife, Susan (Anderson); his children, Jeremiah and Mary; his siblings, Paula (Scott) Phillips, Jim (Sherrie) Sanders, Mark (Lisa) Sanders and Cheryl (Todd) Bachman; and his dogs, Bear and Heidi.

Please share your memories of John at OsheimSchmidt.com.