Obituaries : Elliott S. Barker, 101; Smokey’s ‘Stepfather’

Conservationist and author Elliott S. Barker, who called himself Smokey the Bear’s “stepfather,” has died. He was 101.

Barker died Sunday at a Santa Fe nursing home, where he had lived for more than a year.

Barker, a founding member of the National Wildlife Federation, was named a “hero of our time” in July, 1987, by Newsweek magazine.

In 1950, while an employee of the New Mexico Game and Fish Department, Barker helped rescue the cub that would become Smokey from a fire in Lincoln National Forest. That rescue became the inspiration for the use of the bear as the national symbol of forest fire prevention.

The cub was sent to the National Zoo in Washington, where it died in 1976.

Barker moved from Texas to New Mexico with his family in a covered wagon when he was 3.

He worked for the U.S. Forest Service in New Mexico for 10 years as a ranger and supervisor and in 1931 was named the state’s first game warden, retiring in1953.

Barker then began to write full-time. He wrote seven books and in 1972 received the Golden Spur Award from the Western Writers of America for his book, “Western Life and Adventures, 1889-1970.”