A. S. Roberts

Billings Gazette Obit, Nov 2, 2005 A.S. "Bud" Roberts, 89, passed away while eating his favorite meal, breakfast, on Tuesday morning, Nov. 1, 2005 at Evergreen Laurel Health and Rehab Center. Family graveside services will be 10 a.m. Saturday, Nov. 5, at Huntley Cemetery. Bud will be remembered as a hardworking man with strong convictions. He loved being outdoors, being with his cattle, teams of horses, fishing, whatever — as long as he was outside. Bud was born July 22, 1916, to Lewis and Carolina Roberts at the family ranch home on Sunday Creek, southwest of Miles City. He was the only boy with two older sisters and two younger sisters. When he was 16, in the midst of the Depression, he quit school and picked sugar beets by hand, tossing them into a horse-drawn wagon for two bits a day. This is when he learned the value of money. At 18 years old, Bud went to California to work in the gold mines. He learned to run a D6 Cat Crawler and realized his first real love. He loved old Caterpillars and loved to work on them, a project he was devoted to in his retirement years. As a young man, Bud also worked as a ranch hand. He soon became a ranch manager and then later an owner and operator of a cattle and grain ranch on Pryor Creek. He sold that ranch and later moved to a smaller place east of Ballantine. He served on school boards in the 1950s and 1960s. He served as Yellowstone county Commissioner for 10 years in the 1960s and early 1970s. He was on the Midland Fair Board and the Northern International Livestock Exposition board. For years, he and his wife Bert sponsored the Northern Rodeo Association junior events. He was State FHA supervisor for three years and was a member of the Montana Stockgrower's Association, Montana Grain Grower's Association, Masons, Scottish Rite, Al Bedoo Shrine, and Director of the Yellowstone County Sheriff's Posse. He married Joyce Keating in 1940 and to this union, three children were born: Lew, Carol and Tedde. He married Bertha A. Fry in 1973, and he and Bert truly enjoyed each other's company until her death in September of 1996. They raised a garden together, traveled and were true soul mates. Survivors included his children, Lew, of Billings area, Carol of Libby, Tedde (friend RJ Mowrey) Roberts of Riverton, Wyo.; two younger sisters, Myrtle Neadeau of Mokelumne Hill, Calif., and Margarite Colgove of Columbus; and numerous grandkids and great-grandchildren, nieces, nephews and friends. He was preceded in death by his wife, Bertha; his parents, older sisters Marian Artz and Alice Klein.