Earl Bada Beard, age 80, died on Sunday, October 8, 2017, at his home in Gladstone, New Mexico.

Funeral services were held at 2:00 PM on Thursday, October 12, 2017 at the Gladstone Community Center in Gladstone, New Mexico and burial followed in the Gladstone Cemetery in Gladstone, New Mexico by Hass Funeral Directors of Clayton, New Mexico.

Earl was born on December 29, 1936, the only child of Fannie (Bada) and Floyd W. (Bub) Beard. Earl grew up on the family ranch near Gladstone and attended school in Farley, New Mexico where he graduated in 1955. After graduating, Earl helped his dad on the ranch with his cattle business as well as worked for other local ranchers hauling hay, fixing fence, branding, and doing other types of ranch work.

Earl grew up with Bob and Bill Goodyear from a nearby ranch, and when Earl found out that Bill Goodyear had started dating Lorraine Jackson of Trinidad, Colorado, he asked Bill if she happened to have any sisters. That prompted Bill to take Earl with him to a dance at Branson, Colorado where he met Lorraine's older sister, Lois. Lois was a willowy, brown-eyed beauty and Earl was soon smitten. Over the next few years,  Bill and Earl made frequent trips to Trinidad to visit the women that they were chasing and in 1966, Bill and Lorraine got married on July 10  and Earl and Lois got married on October 1.

After the wedding, Bub and Fannie sold Earl and Lois the family ranch at Gladstone and retired to a small house in Farley.  For several years, Lois and Earl scraped by running a few cows and selling eggs to make ends meet. Earl said, "You can make a living selling eggs, just not a good living."

Finally, in the late 1970's, they decided that if they wanted to keep the ranch, they would both need to get jobs, and they applied at the La Mesa Race Track in Raton, NM. After their stint working at the track, Earl got a job working for Colfax County driving a road grader, and Lois got a job as Postmaster of the Gladstone post office. They tirelessly worked at their day-jobs as well as worked to grow a thriving cattle ranch. And by the time they both retired in the late 1990's, Lois and Earl had purchased several additional properties besides the family property, where they ran cattle.

Because Earl suffered from epilepsy as a child and teenager, he and Lois made the decision not to have children for fear of passing the condition onto them. This meant that they had all the more love and affection to shower on Lois's sister, Lorraine's girls. Sherry and Kaye, and Lois's brother, Lyle's children - Lyle Ray Junior, Roy, Rhonda, Larry, and Kenny.  Earl enjoyed playing with the kids when they were little, and when they were older, he liked putting them to work.  When Sherry and Kaye were growing up, they spent many Sundays helping Earl and Lois tear down and rebuild fence, cut wood, brand cattle and do various other odd jobs around the ranch.

Throughout his eighty years on the planet, Earl Beard enjoyed laughing; he enjoyed the outdoors working cattle, he enjoyed auctions and buying his latest treasure, He enjoyed spending time with his dogs, cats, and chickens, and he enjoyed teasing people probably more than most anything else. Earl enjoyed other people's company, and he never met a waitress that he didn't want to pester.  Luckily for him, Lois was patient with his random comments and boisterous outbursts, and she always said, "Earl has never met a stranger."

As the years went by, Earl and Lois continued to live their ranching dream until Lois began to experience signs of forgetfulness. It wasn't long before it became risky to leave her at home alone, and Earl was forced to put her into the Colfax Long-term Care Facility in Springer.  There, she thrived, and Earl was left to live a solitary life on the ranch with his dogs. Luckily for Earl, Gladstone is a close-knit community, and his saving grace was having lunch down at the Gladstone store every day with his long-time friend, Dan Bryan and other locals.

In November of 2016, Earl began losing weight, and though he went to the doctor, no one seemed to want to get to the root of his problem. Earl suffered from swollen feet, terrible back pain, yellowing skin, stomach and intestinal issues, and though concerned family and friends kept asking him if everything was okay and encouraging him to go to the doctor, he seemed satisfied with diagnoses of "parasites" or "kidney issues".  It was a mere two days before his passing, that Earl received word of what was actually going on with him - Stage 4 pancreatic cancer which had metastasized to the bone.

Earl was told he had three to six months to live, but that was not the case. He passed away on Sunday, October 8, 2016 at 8:55 P.M., just a couple days after learning about his condition, in the company of his long-time friend and hired-helper, Linda Rogers.

Now it is up to those of us left behind to remember Earl's legacy.  Earl enjoyed life and other people's company.  He enjoyed the outdoors, hard work, and a good laugh. He was the ultimate teaser and enjoyed the blush of red that burned across  his victim's cheeks to the tips of their ears.  He had a laugh that could fill up a room, and when you heard it, there was no question of its source.  He had a savvy business sense that belied his humble beginnings.  In the end, Earl suffered more than anyone should, and he did it silently, stoically, and with the grace of a cowboy.  As his dentist, Brian Nazeri said when he learned of Earl's passing, "Who's going to replace Earl?"  The answer is, no one.  Earl was one-of-a-kind and irreplaceable.  He will be sorely missed.

Earl was preceded in death by his parents, Bub and Fanny Beard. He is survived by his wife, Lois of Colfax General Long term Care Facility in Springer; He is also survived by numerous nieces, nephews, cousins, and friends; as well as his beloved fur babies, his dogs, Skidboot and Hobo.

SURVIVORS :

WIFE: Lois Beard of Gladstone, New Mexico.

COUSINS: Alice Murray of Montana, Janet Gearhardt and her husband John and Barrett Beard all of Kansas, Ronald Bada and his wife Rene of Oklahoma, Coleen Neeley of Mississippi, Jerry Bada and his wife Sue of Gladstone, New Mexico and Yvonne Headrick of Walsenburg, Colorado.