Several people over two days of interviews in Council said Mr. Yantis, who ran for sheriff himself seven or eight years ago but lost, was also a man who was not about to hold his tongue when he felt wronged.
“There is little doubt, residents and family members said, that Mr. Yantis was a tough man who had lived a tough outdoor life. He lost part of a toe in a logging accident, and just a few years ago when he was in his 50s — and still training horses — he broke his pelvis coming down on a saddle horn when the horse bucked.
He was a good man, he was an honest man, a hard worker, but he did have a bit of a temper,” said Bob Grossen, whose family has been in the Council area since the 1880s. “But if you know Jack, if you grew up around Jack, you know Jack would not be the person who would pull a gun on someone — I have no problem saying that.”
Mr. Yantis’s two daughters described him as a soft-spoken man who rarely raised his voice and who loved his animals. He trained his daughters in gun safety from the age of 5. His idea of Sunday worship was to head into Idaho’s back country.
“Let’s go see what God created,” he would say, his daughter Sarah Yantis, 42, recalled.
