Rollin Roth, a longtime patrolman for the Colorado Highway Patrol in Bayfield and former La Plata County commissioner, died June 4 at the Valley Inn in Mancos.
He was 89 years old.
Roth was known for being unfailingly courteous to people he stopped when he served as a patrolman, said his son, Greg Roth of Bayfield. People still remember how kind his dad was during a traffic stop 30 years ago.
“He was happy,” even at the end of his life when his faculties were beginning to fail, Roth said. “He found the humor and joy in everything.”
When Roth trained as a police officer with the state, the agency was called the Colorado Courtesy Patrol. Although it was transitioning into the highway patrol, he was trained by the old members of the patrol and still viewed his job primarily as providing assistance, issuing tickets only when it was required.
Roth, known to locals as Rollie, was a third-generation Coloradoan born May 7, 1927, in Broomfield, where he worked on his family’s dairy farm. His grandmother was the first white child born in Fruita.
He quit school after eighth grade to work on his family farm, then joined the Navy toward the end of World War II and was in boot camp and preparing to head to Europe. His oldest brother, Chuck, who had been shot down over Germany while flying a B-17 for the Army Air Corps, had been in a prisoner of war camp. Roth’s mission changed and he was ordered to escort his brother home instead. After the war ended, he was stationed in California and worked as a Navy cook.
When he returned home, he met Ella Marie Fick, and they married in February 1947. They were married for 67 years when she died in August 2014.
“Those people, the Greatest Generation, all of them, that’s why we have the freedoms we have,” Greg Roth said. “They were amazing.”
Roth then worked as a mechanic for the Denver Tramway, joining the Colorado State Patrol in Golden in 1955. He quit in 1957 and bought a ranch in Hotchkiss.
He and Ella decided they needed health insurance, and he rejoined the State Patrol, coming to Durango.
The patrol opened a duty station in Bayfield in 1964, and he transferred here to live.
Greg Roth said he and his family were used to people coming up to them in the store or at restaurants, thanking his dad for helping their kids get home or getting them gas if they ran out of fuel on the road.
“He said, “I don’t give tickets away, they cost money. You earn them,’” he said. “If you earned a chewing out, you got that too.” If it was a young driver who was pulled over, Roth would tell the youth to have his parents call him so he could discuss the situation with them.
In the wintertime, he would check on folks if he hadn’t seen them out for a while or if he noticed their driveway wasn’t plowed out. Occasionally, there was an emergency when a vehicle wouldn’t start or the phone lines went out, and people had no way of getting out.
He retired from the State Patrol in 1984, then ran for La Plata County Commission and served for one four-year term.
After being a commissioner, he worked part-time for the La Plata County Sheriff’s Office, transporting prisoners, often with Ella coming along for company on the trips.
After working for the county, he mostly farmed at their home on County Road 516, raising fainting goats, chickens, miniature burros and pheasants.
“My dad loved all animals and anything he could plant,” particularly the apple and pear trees on his farm, Greg Roth said.
Rollin Roth is survived by his two sons and daughters-in-law, Greg and Sharon of Bayfield and Gary and Joanne Roth of Elizabeth; one brother and two sisters; and three grandchildren and their spouses, Christopher and Heather Roth of Fort Collins, Tanya and Keith Lawyer of Ignacio and Gentry and Michelle Roth of Littleton. He also is survived by three great-grandchildren, Rollin C., Ulani and Wyatt Roth.
The Roths were longtime members of St. Mark’s Episcopal Church. Services will be held at 10 a.m. Friday, July 22, 2016, at the Seventh Day Adventist Church at 1775 Florida Road in Durango.
After the service, his ashes will be interred at the columbarium next to his wife’s at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church, 910 East Third Ave. in Durango. A reception will take place at the St. Mark’s Parish Hall afterward.
For memorial contributions, the family requests donations be made to a local charity in Roth’s honor.
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