I love living out here. I have the best neighbors on the planet ... Dean and Brooke are a barrel of fun! I was just over there talking to them, and we were talking about the Department of Fish & Game, and how the last time he was in there ... he saw (can't think of her name...) ... and how she turns out to be "Pogue's daughter." Well, I asked "Who's Pogue?" And then we rolled into one of Dean's great stories, only this one is legendary in Southern Idaho. The legend of Claude Dallas. We also had a really good laugh about the fairly recent article in the Idaho Statesman about the embarrassment of his escape.
"Claude Lafayette Dallas, Jr. (born March 11, 1950) was a self-styled mountain man. The son of a dairy farmer, he spent his early years in Luce County, Michigan, later moving to rural Morrow County, Ohio where he liked to trap and hunt game. Dallas graduated from Mount Gilead High School, Mount Gilead, Ohio in 1967. During the Vietnam War, he dodged the draft and fled west, earning a living as a ranch hand and trapper. Dallas was eventually charged with killing two game wardens in rural Owyhee County, Idaho, in 1981. In 1986 Dallas escaped from prison and eluded law enforcement officials for a year before being captured.
Dallas attracted national media attention after both incidents, becoming a particularly controversial figure in Idaho. Some Idahoans saw him as a folk hero, defying the government by defending his right to live off the land; many others, however, were shocked and disgusted. After a manslaughter conviction, Dallas served 22 years of a 30-year sentence and was released in February 2005."
Here is the rather comical article about the escape blunder in the Idaho Statesman: ARTICLE
Someone even wrote a song about him.
That song is by Alberta singer Ian Tyson
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