Coyour funeral home today in Springfield

DNR conservation officer, pilot killed in crash Friday

I first started at the Bemidji (Minn.) Pioneer as an intern in the summer of 1996. That would begin six years as a news reporter, sports reporter and copy editor for a small, six-day-per-week daily newspaper in northern Minnesota. I wrote a large range of stories from multiple beats, to features to sports, my favorite being the coverage of the Red Lake Reservation High School basketball team named the Warriors. Here is a collection of my stories from my time at the Pioneer.

June 16, 1999

By Devlyn Brooks

The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources announced Tuesday that conservation officer and pilot Grant Coyour, 43, will receive full honors at his 1:30 p.m. funeral service today in Springfield, Minn. -- about 14 miles west of New Ulm on U.S. Highway 14 -- for dying in the line of duty.

In addition, Gov. Jesse Ventura declared Tuesday that the Minnesota state flag will be flown at half-staff on all state property today in rememberance of Coyour, who along with University of Idaho student Eric Cox, 29, died in a plane crash in Lake of the Woods County Friday.

"It was really obvious to me that he loved what he did," Rich Sprouse, the DNR Enforcement Division public information officer, said Tuesday. "I think he believed his job as a conservation officer/pilot was tremendously important."

As for the crash investigation, DNR officials said Tuesday it is at a standstill until the National Transportation Safety Board releases the results of its investigation, which could be late this week.

The DNR also announced Tuesday that funeral services for Cox will be held in his hometown of Harbor Springs, Mich. His family has requested his remains be cremated and the ashes be spread over the Red Lake Wildlife Management Area -- which is situated in northern Beltrami and southern Lake of the Woods counties and is where the crash took place.

Coyour's service will be held at St. John's Lutheran Church, 224 North Mary Ave., in Springfield at about 1:30 p.m. today.

More than 400 law enforcement officers statewide are expected to attend, including DNR Commissioner Allen Garber, Deputy Commissioner Steve Morse and Assistant Commissioner Kurt Ulrich.

"Both of these men were committed professionals," Garber stated in a news release soon after the crash.

Uniformed officers are expected to enter the church about 1 p.m. today, and the service is expected to last from 40 to 60 minutes.

A two-mile procession to the Springfield City Cemetery will follow the service.

For those who knew and worked with Coyour locally, a memorial service will be held at 10 a.m. Friday at Calvary Lutheran Church, 2508 Washington Ave. S., in Bemidji.

In addition, a gathering of family and friends will take place 6 p.m. Thursday at the Hope Lutheran Church in Moose Lake, with a memorial service at 6:30 p.m.

Coyour, according to the DNR, is the 18th state game warden/conservation officer to die in the line of duty. The first was Charles Wetsel in October 1897, with the most recent prior to Coyour being James Aker on Aug. 28, 1976.

Coyour and Cox, who was in charge of the Northwest Minnesota Moose Research Project -- a joint project between the Minnesota DNR and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service -- were conducting a moose telemetry survey in the Red Lake Wildlife Management Area at the time of the crash.

Coyour flew out of the Bemidji/Beltrami Airport about 6:30 a.m. Friday and picked up Cox at the DNR's private airport in the Red Lake Wildlife Management Area. From there, the two took to the skies to perform the moose tracking.

About 10 a.m., the aircraft's emergency transponder beacon was picked up by a Canadian government plane. the plane returned to the site about 2 p.m. with two paramedics who parachuted into the boggy area. The paramedics, joined by conservation officers and local law enforcement officials, discovered the craft partially submerged in a marsh/bog area. Both were found dead.

On Sunday, the plane was transported in four pieces to a hangar at the Bemidji/Beltrami Airport, where NTSB officials investigated the pieces Monday.

Coyour joined the DNR in 1988 as a conservation officer in Moose Lake, working as a field officer and a standby pilot. While working in Moose Lake, he served on the DNR's personal watercraft task force. He also worked for a short period of time with the DNR's Marine Unit in Duluth before becoming a fulltime pilot in 1997. Coyour was also a member of the Minnesota Army National Guard and had been a pilot for about 15 years.

Cox, a doctoral student at the University of Idaho, said in an interview shortly before his death that moose reproduction is headed in the right direction after several years of decline. He said success is up in all of the study's three zones -- farm country near Viking, Agassiz National Wildlife Refuge and Beltrami Island State Forest.

He attributed much of the recent increased reproduction to two consecutive mild winters. Cow moose were able to enter the winter in better condition and maintain adequate nutrition into the calving season.

His contract would have concluded July 1, but he had planned to return to northwestern Minnesota for some additional research this fall.