Rankin funeral on Saturday

Voting in the Nov. 2 election is probably the best thing anyone can do to remember Ron Rankin, family members said Thursday.

“The best way to remember dad is to make darn sure you vote,” daughter Kerri Thoreson said.

And, of course, the former Kootenai County commissioner and crusader for lower property taxes would have wanted that vote to be for Republicans.

Rankin, 75, died Tuesday and didn’t get the opportunity to vote, one of his favorite privileges. Kootenai County Clerk Dan English said Rankin didn’t fill out an absentee ballot before he went into the hospital for a double bypass surgery.

The family said that’s unfortunate because a new Idaho law would have ensured that Rankin’s absentee vote would have counted, even though he died before Election Day.

That’s why Thoreson said it would be nice for friends to remember Rankin by casting their ballot Nov. 2. The family is asking for other memorials to be made to Children’s Village in Coeur d’Alene.

Rankin’s funeral is at 1 p.m. Saturday at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 2801 N. Fourth St. followed by a full military burial at Forest Cemetery.

English Funeral Chapel is offering a public visitation today from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. The chapel is located at 1133 N. Fourth St.

Kootenai County commissioners said this week that they will consider naming the county’s veteran’s memorial after Rankin. The memorial was spearheaded by Rankin, a U.S. Marine who served in World War II and the Korean War. He also raised all the money for the plaques and granite memorials honoring local people who died serving their country.

Rankin said he saw the memorial as his legacy.

“He built it and got all the money for it,” Commissioner Gus Johnson said. “So we will talk about it.”

Johnson said the county will have to discuss the idea with the various veterans groups before making a final decision. Johnson said the county also must find someone to take over the memorial’s curator duties.

Rankin was just finishing a book on the memorial before he died. One of his last efforts was editing the photographs.