It was an honor, a privilege, and a bit of a challenge to be commissioned to carve a caricature of the late Gene Abdalla to be presented at his party for retiring as U. S. Marshal in 1994. The assignment by former honorary member of South Dakota Woodcarvers, Inc., the honorable Frank Gibbs, was to show Gene attired as an old west marshal holding a hat with two bullet holes. The end of his many years of service under President Reagan was supposedly due to shots fired by Sen. Daschle and Pres. Clinton. It was admittedly a boost to my ego to see glimpses of the carving on the KSFY news presentation remembering Gene Abdallah:
https://www.ksfy.com/content/news/Remembering-Gene-Abdallah--564731712.html
A quote from Gene’s Obituary (well worth reading): “Former Governor Bill Janklow perhaps summed it up best when he stated: "Someday, years from now, historians will rediscover Gene Abdallah in the files. From all the official documents, they will learn a lot about him and discover both what most people know about Gene and what most people never knew about him. These historians will come to know that behind the biggest badge in South Dakota was the biggest heart in South Dakota.”
https://www.legacy.com/obituaries/argusleader/obituary.aspx?n=gene-g-abdallah&pid=194344771&fhid=18053
