Rufus Barnel Bragg
(June 16, 1942 - January 5, 2012)

Barnel Bragg was born June 16, 1942, in Atlanta, Ga., to Lavinia and RB Bragg. He died Jan. 5, 2012, after a valiant eight month battle with cancer. Barnel grew up in Atlanta and in West Palm Beach, Fl. He used to love to go to Tybee Island, Georgia, summers to visit his paternal grandparents. Fishing and crabbing were favorites for him.

He attended Stetson University before heading to Alaska to work for the Dept. of Fish and Game where he tagged salmon and helped transplant bison into the Delta River area outside of Delta Junction. On a break from military training at Ft. Leonard Wood, MO, he went back home to West Palm Beach and met his future wife, Becky Ramer. They were married the following year in 1965 in the little log Presbyterian church in Delta and developed one of the last Alaskan homesteads.

A year later they moved to Fairbanks and lived for two years while he finished a degree in education at the University of Alaska. He enjoyed working at the university's Musk Ox Farm. After graduating, they returned to their homestead in the Clearwater area and taught school at Ft. Greely. During that time he boarded forty horses for hunting guides and became an assistant guide himself.

After their first child was born, they returned to Florida, and he earned a Master's Degree in School Administration by attending night school at Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton. Days he worked on construction projects on Capone Island for the Dept. of Florida Parks and Recreation. They decided that the Northwest combined the best of the Alaskan mountains and the Florida sea and have had their permanent home on Guemes Island, WA, since 1980. He worked locally in construction for a number of years before the family moved back to Alaska temporarily and lived in Barrow.

Since 1991 he's worked on the North Slope, first as a foreman in the oil fields and then as a treatment plant operator. Barnel became a Christian as a boy and lived by those ideals his whole life.

He is survived by Becky, his wife of forty-six years, their children Karla, Kenny and granddaughter, Cierra DeCamp of Maple Valley, Janel Bragg of Mt. Vernon, David and Grace Bragg of Lacey, WA., and Shannon Bragg of Providence, RI. He’s also survived by his mother, Lavinia Clarke in Greenville, S.C., his sister and brother-in-law, Rebecca and George Fogg in Naples, Fl, and his brother and sister-in-law, David and Cindy Bragg in Austin, TX.

A private family graveside service was held at the Guemes Island Eden Cemetery Jan. 9, 2012 followed by a time of remembrance at home where his family shared memories, read poems and stories he had written and read cards from cherished friends and beloved co-workers at Prudhoe Bay. Arrangements are in the care of Evans Funeral Chapel and Crematory, Inc., Anacortes, WA and the San Juan Islands. To share memories of Barnel, please sign the online guest register at www.evanschapel.com.