Ricky John "Scratch" Warneke, 71

Ricky John Warneke aka. Rick aka. Scratch, 71, passed away at his home in Texas, on Sunday, March 3, 2024, from brain cancer. 

He was born to Norman and Ruth Warneke, on Jan. 26, 1953, in Lewistown, Montana. When Norm and Ruth moved to Oregon, Rick finished high school at Crane Union High School which is a public boarding school in Eastern Oregon. After high school, Rick took various jobs and rodeoed across the pacific northwest eventually being recruited to ride bareback horses and team rope for Montana State University. While on the rodeo team Rick helped the team win a national championship. After College Rick turned his ambition and attention to the Northern Rodeo Association winning the 1980 bareback championship by $17 and some change. 

Rick and his family moved to Kalispell, to work for John and Jill Carpenter at the Kalispell Livestock Auction. Helping to run the auction barn and working with John to build one of the finest rodeo companies Montana has ever seen from their prison bulls to all-time great bucking horses.

Rick eventually turned his attention to building businesses in the Kalispell area from Mobile Home Marketplace to Insty-Prints. He sat on the board for the Kalispell Chamber of Commerce and was a key figure on main street in Kalispell. During this time Rick was heavily involved with youth sports chasing his four kids across the country and the world to watch them terrorize other teams on soccer fields, basketball courts, and football fields. He was a father figure and mentor to too many people to mention but if you are reading this know that Rick still loved each and every one of you. 

Eventually, the call of the cowboy was too much, and he joined his brother Terry as owner/operator of the Worland Livestock Barn and Washakie feeders. This led to many years of buying and selling cows and horses in Montana and Wyoming, leading to the first internet cattle auction that allowed bidding in real time.  

When the winters got too cold to stand Rick decided to move to Texas running various large ranches. 

He was survived by his wife, Tammie Kay; and her four children, Chastity, Misty, Buck, and Casey; brother, Terry; and his son, Wylie; and sister, Dollie; her husband, Ron; and their two daughters, Shawn and Kim; Rick’s children, Joel and Sarah Warneke, Matt and Jennifer Warneke, Whitney Warneke, and Dusty and Tracy Feezell; plus many grandkids. 

In the end “My Heros Will Always be Cowboys” and a hell of a cowboy was called home.