Nancy Ring’s love of animals began when she was a child and continued until she died at 54.
Ring, who was director of Summit County Animal Control in Frisco for years, died Jan. 17 at a hospice in the Denver area. She had suffered from breast cancer.
A road near the animal-control building is being renamed Nancy’s Place.
“She was a great lady and boss,” said Lesley Hall, a resident of Fairplay who now supervises the office.
“Nancy was instrumental in opening doors to a lot of possibilities,” said friend and co-worker Lyn Manton Krueger of Silverthorne.
Odd animals — goats, pigs, monkeys — occasionally showed up at the shelter, and Ring and Hall once found themselves in an unexpected situation: chasing a lost sheep on foot near Interstate 70.
The sheep had already wandered through a soccer field and a Taco Bell drive-through.
Despite help from wranglers and law enforcement officers, “we never caught it, but at least we got it farther off the interstate,” said Hall, adding that the two women were laughing hysterically when they tried to tackle the animal.
Ring and Krueger worked on a program to use “therapy dogs” to help children with problems and to visit the sick in hospitals and nursing homes.
During Ring’s final illness, a dog named Vinny, trained by Krueger, was Ring’s “chemo partner” at treatments.
Ring carried her devotion to the state legislature, where she testified about animal cruelty, helped organize shelters in other Western Slope towns and set up a foster program for abandoned litters.
Because of Ring and others who testified, the legislature passed the felony aggravated-cruelty law, Hall said.
Ring was on state boards for animal control and helped set up the state certification program for animal-control officers.
The Ring household always had animals — five currently. Nancy Ring would bring a dog or cat home, “and we (the family) would interview it,” and if all agreed, “we’d have another pet,” said Ring’s husband, John.
A job as a veterinarian “was on her radar,” but when the children came, she put that dream aside, John Ring said.
Nancy Jean Brandon was born in Dallas on Aug. 25, 1955, and moved to Summit County in 1978. She soon got a job as animal-control officer and became director in 1982.
She married John Ring on Feb. 21, 1981.
In addition to him, she is survived by her daughter, Alyssa Jean Johnson of San Carlos, Calif.; her son, Sean Wesley Ring of San Diego; two grandchildren; her father, Al Brandon of Yantis, Texas; and three brothers: Reid Brandon of San Mateo, Calif., Bob Brandon of Appleton, Wis., and James Brandon of Mineola, Texas.
Virginia Culver: 303-954-1223 or vculver@denverpost.com
