Every Tuesday night, usually around 7 p.m., Steve Mellin would call the home of Chris and Bill Ruth and ask the same question: Are we going to shoot this week?
Last Saturday, months after Mellin suffered a heart attack in May, his friends celebrated Mellin’s life with the kind of thing some could mistake as distasteful, if you didn’t know him and the people involved. Warren Brown of Pierce sprinkled Mellin’s ashes in 75 shotgun shells, and he and the Ruths and 25 others shot them off at Great Guns Sporting shooting range in Nunn as a tribute.
“He’s laughing with us the whole time,” Chris said.
In fact, he wanted it this way, Brown said. The two joked occasionally about how Mellin wanted to die. Mellin would say he was claustrophobic and didn’t want his body to be stuck inside a box. He wanted his ashes spread across the prairie, Brown said. He may have even mentioned that he wanted to be shot across it, although it’s not like he put it in his will.
Mellin was a farrier, aka a horseshoer, who taught the science of it at Colorado State University for many years. He was known for it. He made his tools by hand. He preferred the classic methods, but he also was widely respected across the state for that knowledge. He also was a shooter. It wasn’t just a hobby. It was who he was.
It fit him. He was a cowboy. Some called him the Sam Elliott of Greeley. He had that deep, gravely voice, and he was tall, with proper manners, Chris said, filling his conversations with “Yes ma’ams” whenever the two talked. He even had the starched Levis and shirts and the big mustache.
“He was always the nicest gentleman I ever met,” Chris said.
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