Nation's only female park ranger to be slain is eulogized

The Rev. Galen Gallimore says goodbye to one of his own.

By Rachel Pritchett, communicator

TACOMA, Wash. — The last time the Rev. Galen Gallimore saw her was at Christmas Eve worship.

On New Year's Day, Margaret Anderson, ranger at Mount Rainier National Park, was shot to death by a man fleeing authorities she had stopped at a checkpoint. Benjamin Colton Barnes, 24, was being pursued in connection with a shooting earlier down the mountain. Barnes later was found drowned, half submerged in a creek.

Anderson, 34, was the only female ranger of the National Park Service to be killed in the line of duty. Nine rangers have been killed since the service began in 1916, none at Mount Rainier, one of the nation's most popular park destinations.

Anderson, park ranger husband Eric and their two small daughters had been coming to Gallimore's ELCA church, Bethany Lutheran Church of Spanaway, for about a year. Spanaway is the last stop before the road narrows and winds up the 14,410-foot mountain. Gallimore called her "a woman of light, joy and beauty" at a public memorial Jan. 10 at Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma attended by 3,700 people. Thousands more listened at a nearby church, and Northwest media outlets ran the service live.

Gallimore's words fell gently across a community still deeply scarred by the 2009 shooting deaths of four police officers in nearby Lakewood.

"I wish I had known Margaret better. I wish I had known more of this faith," said Gallimore, who just days earlier had been quickly called on to conduct a community candlelight vigil for the beloved ranger, and to represent the faith community as media from throughout the United States and beyond asked how this could have happened.

Anderson's father, the Rev. Paul Kritsch, had some of the answer and at the service said, "Taking up the cross to follow Him was one of the main reasons Margaret went into law enforcement. Loving others in Christ's name led her to put herself between evil coming up the mountain and people at the top who needed protecting." Kirtsch is pastor at Redeemer Lutheran Church of Westfield, N.J., a congregation of The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod.

Raised in the faith, Anderson loved the outdoors from childhood, and put the two together in her studies at Kansas State University, where she was active at Luther House. Before Mount Rainier, she was a ranger at Bryce Canyon National Park in Utah, where she met her husband.

Throngs of people who never knew Anderson lined the streets of Tacoma as her white hearse slowly made its way to Trinity Lutheran Church, an ELCA congregation next to PLU. There, Anderson's family privately said their final goodbye to their beloved wife, mother, daughter and sister before the cortege continued on to PLU.

Jon Jarvis, director of the National Park Service, grieved as his lost employee's casket rested beneath a flag before him. "Dozens of people were innocently enjoying that snowy morning. Ranger Anderson was doing what she did best — keeping the visitors safe," he said. "National Park Ranger Anderson is a hero."

Ken Salazar, secretary of the U.S. Department of the Interior, asked how many eyes Anderson had opened to the majesty of God's creation at Mount Rainier. "We know that we cannot count the flowers in Rainier's Paradise Valley on a summer's day," he said. Anderson's showshoes, hat and small evergreen trees filled the stage as bagpipes squeezed their mournful tones and a host of law-enforcement members stood guard.

Gallimore and Kritsch spoke of the beginning and the end of Anderson's brief life. Gallimore recalled her baptism. "In that day of her baptism, God said, 'Marilyn, you are Mine.' "

Kritsch asked, "So were was Jesus last Sunday morning on New Year's Day?" He quoted part of Matthew 28: "And lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age."

"She would want you to know Jesus is with you always."

Photo cutlines
KOMO-TV, used with permission
Slain ranger Margaret Anderson is eulogized by her pastor, the Rev. Galen Gallimore of Bethany Lutheran Church of Spanaway, an ELCA congregation, at a public memorial Jan. 10 at Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma that was attended by 3,700 people.

KOMO-TV, used with permission
Anderson's father, the Rev. Paul Kritsch, pastor of Redeemer Lutheran Church of Westfield, N.J., said Jesus' directive to love one another prompted his daughter to become a park ranger.

KOMO-TV, used with permission
Margaret Anderson's flag-draped coffin is overlooked by law-enforcement members at a public memorial service Jan. 10 at Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma, Wash.

Slain park ranger Margaret Anderson was assigned to Mount Rainier National Park, one of the nation's most popular park destinations.

Margaret Anderson