PORT ANGELES — More than 3,000 people gathered Monday at Civic Field to grieve the loss of U.S. Forest Service Officer Kristine Fairbanks, and to give thanks for the light she shined into their lives.
This was a woman who shared her gifts — of skill and of irreverent humor.
With her devotion to her job, her police dog partner, Radar, and her sometimes high, squeaky voice, she made an impression on people wherever she worked, in communities across the West.
“She was like a pebble that sends out ripples,” said Beverly Loudon of Esquimalt, British Columbia, one of many who arrived hours before Monday’s service began at 1 p.m.
Loudon had met Fairbanks, she said, at a gathering of law enforcement officers on Vancouver Island.
Fairbanks, who was 51 and had devoted more than two decades to the forest service, was killed in the line of duty on Sept. 20 at the Dungeness Forks Campground in Olympic National Forest south of Sequim.
Authorities believe Shawn Matthew Roe, whose last known residence was Everett, shot both Fairbanks and Sequim-area retiree Richard Ziegler.
Roe was killed hours later by Clallam County Sheriff’s deputies outside Blyn’s Longhouse Market & Deli parking lot.
Monday’s memorial service was an outpouring of love and sorrow for a woman who worked in forests from Alaska to Texas, and who was beloved on the North Olympic Peninsula.
She graduated from Sequim High School, worked as a seasonal ranger in Olympic National Park before joining the forest service, and made her home with her husband, Brian Fairbanks — a Fish and Wildlife officer — and 15-year-old daughter Whitney, on the banks of the Bogachiel River.
The ceremony was created by Fairbanks’ family and her community — which stretches beyond the Peninsula.
During her career, Fairbanks patrolled national parks and national forests in several states including Oregon, where she met U.S. Forest Service special agent Anne Minden while on a “mushroom patrol.”
