Louis “Louie” Bud” Bokinskie, 80, Foley formerly of Long Prairie and Sebeka

September 12, 1935 – September 27, 2015

Louis J. “Louie” “Bud” Bokinskie of Foley formerly of Sebeka, died peacefully Sunday, Sept. 27, 2015 after a long illness at the St. Cloud Hospital.

Funeral services will be 1:00 P.M. Wednesday, October 7, 2015 at the Camp Ripley Chapel, 1500 Highway 15 Little Falls. Visitation will be one hour prior to the service at the chapel and burial will be in the MN State Veterans Cemetery. Arrangements were made with Benson Funeral Home, St. Cloud, MN.

Louie was raised in Sauk Centre. After graduation he entered the US Army. His proudest achievement was entering US Army Airborne School (Jump School) where he achieved Senior Parachutist and Jump Master. Louie also was a proficient marksman who trained in Special Operations in the 11th and 82nd Airborne, in conjunction with his duties as a paratrooper. Louie obtained a final rank of Staff Sergeant when honorably discharged in 1957.

He met Frances Corbett and they were married in Sauk Centre, MN. Louie and Frances raised four children in Long Prairie.

Upon discharge, Louie attended St. Cloud Teachers College (St Cloud State University) where he obtained an English degree and began teaching at Long Prairie High School in Long Prairie, Minnesota. Louie taught there for over 30 years, but that is not all he occupied himself with, daily.

Louie was a man of many outdoor related trades. In 1972, he built, owned and operated Heartland Sports Center in Long Prairie, which was a hunting and fishing store housed with guns, archery, fishing tackle, live bait, licenses, and a variety of other goods to furnish an outdoors lifestyle. Louie was also a very accomplished taxidermist who, during the course of a year, would mount over 100 deer heads, fish, waterfowl, and any other game loyal customers would send back from hunting excursions from the East Coast to the West coast, and sometimes, other countries. While mounting trophy deer, he was also a certified Boone and Crockett/ Pope and Young official score recorder, and would be trusted to score several potential state record antlers throughout the state of Minnesota-so proficient, he would be able to accurately measure the score of antlers within a few points from just a glance. On his property in Long Prairie in the mid 1970’s, the Long Prairie Sportsman’s Club (LPSC) established the permanent home of the rifle and pistol range along with a complete trap range, where 10’s of thousands of rounds have been fired and is still in operation today. Also, for several years the LPSC had pheasant pens on the property, which were reared and released into the wild with help from the DNR, increasing the pheasant population in Central Minnesota. Possessing a game farm license, Louie always had animals that were brought to him from DNR conservation officers, which he raised or brought to healthy conditions and be released back into the wild; it was pretty common to see young Raccoons running around with the dogs and cats at the bait shop! At his game farm, Louie raised hundreds of Whitetail Deer and ultimately had multiple acres of pens for the deer he raised, which he traded or sold for breeding with other individuals who raised deer.

Louie was a voracious reader—he would read anything he could get his hands on- even up to the time of his death he had read virtually the entire library of books at Foley Nursing Center, among other books or magazines friends, family, and staff would bring him from their personal library.

Survivors include his children, Curt Johnson of Rochester, Pam of Mpls, Laura Walsh of Mpls and Katherine of Pasco, WA, Dan of St Cloud; sisters, Dorothy “Dottie” Stehno of Torrance, CA and Louise (Ron) Burton of Deephaven; former spouse, Frances and 6 grandchildren, Melanie, Abbie, Garrett, Grant, Trevor, and Connor.

He was preceded in death by his parents; sisters, Donna, Alvina (Fritz), and infant son, James.