CROSS LAKE – Retired Game Warden Gary Pelletier’s 10-year quest to include the names of two northern Maine natives on the Maine Law Enforcement Officers Memorial could culminate later this month.

Pelletier hopes to convince the Memorial Committee at its Sept. 19 meeting that Renauld Franck and Dennis Daigle, both of St. Agatha, were game wardens who died in the line of duty and should be included on the memorial.

Franck was 20 years old when he drowned in Square Lake on Aug. 25, 1927. Pelletier believes he has the documentation to show that Franck was a temporary warden at the time and that he was checking illegal fishing activity.

Daigle, 44, was found dead Jan. 28, 1933, in a trappers cabin by some trappers. Pelletier has information that he believes shows Daigle was checking trapping activity in the region of Stockholm.

The death was mysterious, according to Pelletier. Two men were held for several days by the Maine State Police for questioning in the matter. His listed cause of death, “his heart stopped working,” is part of Pelletier’s information.

Pelletier believes he may have died of a heart attack during a struggle.

Pelletier’s applications to have the names of the two men inscribed on the memorial are being done outside the normal route. Names normally are offered by the employing department.

Pelletier has compiled dossiers on the two men, their lives and how they died. His reports, 20 and 21 pages each, include old newspaper accounts of the time, affidavits by senior citizens of northern Maine, and parts of books written years ago on the Warden Service and its people.

“I just want them recognized for their work,” Pelletier said this week. “They served and died and should be remembered for their efforts.

“I’ve done a lot of work on this for a long time,” he said.

Pelletier does not mention in his written discussions that he nearly died in the line of duty himself. It happened when he was a young game warden working in central Maine. He happened on some hunters one evening and a pistol was aimed at him.

When the firearm misfired, he ran.

Pelletier comes from a long line of game wardens. His father, Leonard Pelletier, retired from the service, as did two brothers. Another brother was a member of the Maine State Police, as was one of his sons. Several uncles also were game wardens.

His efforts have been lauded.

In a recent letter outlining the process to have the names included on the memorial plaque in Augusta, Maine Law Enforcement Committee researcher and historian Stephen M. Bunker supports Pelletier’s work.

“I would tend to recommend a vote for inclusion,” Bunker wrote to members of the Memorial Committee last month.

“To Mr. Pelletier’s credit, where official records of employment were lacking [for Franck and Daigle], or details of their death were not documented, he obtained credible information by interviews and sworn affidavit from elder citizens in the region who were personally acquainted with the two wardens, their status as sworn wardens, and the manner of their deaths,” Bunker wrote.

The late 1920s and early 1930s was a time when autopsies were rarely done, and investigations were not as thorough as they are now. It was also a time, Bunker writes, when there was a lack of clear and complete department employment records. Many wardens were hired part time or seasonally. Wages for the men were noted as expenses on the local or district warden’s report.

Regardless, according to Bunker, the seasonal or part-time wardens carried all of the law enforcement authority of the warden service. Some of them spent days, if not weeks, hiking, snowshoeing or canoeing through their assigned districts.

Pelletier will attend the Sept. 19 meeting of the Memorial Committee at Wells.