Richard Lane

February 26, 1943 - May 9, 2016

Richard Lane, 73, of Humboldt, passed away May 9, 2016 at the Humboldt Care Center North. Funeral services will be 2:00 p.m. Thursday, May 12, 2016 in the chapel of the Mason-Lindhart Funeral Home in Humboldt with the Rev. J.K. Raether officiating. Burial will be in Union Cemetery, Humboldt. Visitation with the family is from 1-2 p.m. Thursday at the funeral Home. Richard Lane, the son of Philip and Ruth (Nervig) Lane, was born February 26, 1943 at Humboldt, Iowa. He was raised and educated at Humboldt and graduated from Humboldt High School in 1961. Richard then attended Yale University and Johns Hopkins University before accepting a teaching position as a professor of Anthropology at the University of Idaho at Moscow, Idaho. Richard left academia to live with and study the Basque Sheep Herders of the west. It was while photographing life in the sheep camps of northwestern Nevada in 1969, that it became clear that the saga of the Basque sheepherders in the American West had entered its final phase and was in danger of passing from the scene without leaving any kind of visual record. Richard’s subsequent published work, Basque Sheep Herders Of The American West, serves as that record for that race of people and earned Richard his PhD from Yale University. Following three years with the Basque on the desert plains, Richard lead his own type of nomadic life until settling in Humboldt in 1980. He continued his love of hiking and photography, whose subject soon became deer on the Cottonwood trail, and enjoyed watching sports on television. Richard is survived by his sister, Sue Wiuff of Humboldt and niece and nephews, Marci (Tom) Reimers of Humboldt, and Jeff Wiuff of Marion and Michael (Malea) Wiuff of Humboldt. He is also survived by his great nieces and nephews and great-great nieces and nephews.