Dale Rickards Some wore suits and ties. Others wore cowboy hats and jeans.

People from all walks of life said goodbye last Saturday to Dale Rickards during a memorial at Paramount Ranch in rural Agoura. A large group packed the pavilion at the ranch on a bright and sunny day.

Rickards, a retired Los Angeles police officer, owned a prop company in rural Malibu, high in the Santa Monica Mountains between Westlake and the coast. It provided all sorts of items for Western movies and included a saloon, barn and many authentic backdrops.

The memorial began when the LAPD Mounted Platoon and the Santa Monica Mounted Police presented the colors for the Pledge of Allegiance.

Rickards, 89, loved animals and especially horses. He served LAPD as a cop on horseback in the ’60s. Earlier in his life he served in the cavalry of the U.S. Army. It went mechanized two weeks after he enlisted in 1938, which must have disappointed him because he loved horses so much.

His love of animals included dogs. He also had a pet pig and mule.

Rickards also loved his country. He served in two conflicts, World War II and the Korean War.

“He was also a warrior in LAPD,” said Wendell Philips, who gave the eulogy. Among other duties with the police department, Rickards investigated subversive organizations.

No mention of Rickards would be complete without revealing his politics. Rickards was a staunchly outspoken conservative Republican and the opposite of political correctness.

He candidly said what he meant, and he meant what he said.

Some of Rickards’ friends, and there were many of them, could feel a little uncomfortable about what Rickards might say. But the people who knew him best––and they were diverse––didn’t care.

Dale was always Dale, and his friends liked and respected him because of it.

He was tough on the outside, but he was a gentle and loving man inside.

The memorial included a bagpipes rendition of “Amazing Grace” and a toast with Dr Pepper, Rickards’ favorite beverage.

During a video of Rickards talking about his life, he said, “If I had to live my life over, I still would have married the same woman. I still would have been an L.A. cop. But there’s three horses I wouldn’t have bought.”

Rickards was a longtime member of the Thousand Oaks Kiwanis Club, and his immediate family includes his wife, Dee, two sons, Ron and Gary, and a daughter, Mary Dee Holmes.

Nobody who knew Dale Rickards will ever forget him.