Franklin Taggart Hinckley

Feb. 17, 1955 – Nov. 20, 2025

(written by Maurine Hinckley-Cole)

The sky was nearly black with bulging cumulonimbus clouds. Big drops of rain had already started to fall as thunder roared and lightning tore the clouds apart with violent flashes. The little redheaded boy kneeled on the bed of the old red hay-hauling truck, pounding a hammer on the floor, demanding, “Speak, God, speak! Speak, God, speak!”

That boy was Franklin Taggart Hinckley, born to Madge Marchant and DeVere Taggart Hinckley in the wee hours of February 17, 1955. Dad entered the bedroom where Alex, Allison and I were excitedly waiting for the news and announced, “It’s a boy. Another damned redhead!” And that was the beginning.

The baby was named in honor of his Uncle Frank, who walked into the house after he was born with a great long roll of boloney under his arm, saying to Dad, “I’ll give this to you if you’ll name that kid after me.”

That kid was a force of nature from the get-go. A Hereford bull. Sturdy, big-boned, stout. A Marchant body crowned with Hinckley hair. Or perhaps McNiven hair straight out of Scotland. As a boy, he hated his face full of freckles and his “orange” hair. He thought that they made him ugly. 

Frank was highly intelligent, thoughtful, creative, funny and capable of designing and building one-of-a-kind houses, and he sang songs that made us weep. He also whistled like a bird, forever whistling as he worked and played. But no ordinary whistling. Not Frank. He trilled and chirped and warbled incessantly through the side of his mouth, totally unaware that he was doing something extraordinary. 

Frank was instantly likeable. People loved him. I think that it was his fine set of choppers, as Dad called them. That smile lit up his face and made him absolutely approachable and beloved. I have said many times in my life that when World War III happens, I want to be where Frank is, because Frank can do anything. Frank will save us all with his myriad skills and that smile.

Now he was not perfect. Frank had a temper to match his hair. His boiling point was high, and you definitely did not want to be in the same room with him when he boiled over. There have been holes punched through walls and doors jerked nearly from their hinges. All of the kids, including nieces and nephews, have been on the receiving end of his anger. And still, they adored him, because he also forgave and forgot easily. And they knew that he loved them without reserve. He would blow up like Old Faithful one minute and be as calm as a blue mountain pool the next. Everyone learned that he was pretty much harmless.

Frank graduated from Cowley High School and Northwest Community College, ultimately receiving a degree in natural sciences from the University of Wyoming. He was a fine athlete in high school, participating in football, basketball and track. When he was just a boy, he often challenged Dad to one-on-one football games in the pasture south of the house. Dad chuckled frequently that he had to let Frank “win a few” just to keep his temper in check. 

He was the valedictorian of his 1973 high school class. While many valedictorians are studious fellows who pay little attention to things outside of books, Frank was a rebel. The grades came easily. He was there to challenge and be challenged. At one point, the coach decided that all of the athletes had to cut their hair to certain standards. Frank happened to be sporting an enormous, orange Afro when he was told that he could no longer participate in sports until he cut his hair. He fought back for a while, then shaved it off. He stuffed all of that hair into a plastic bag and hung it on the bulletin board in the high school with a sign that read: “Herein this bag hang all of the faults and failings of Frank Hinckley.”

Frank balanced the athletics with music. He took piano lessons, played the bassoon in high school and college, and even took up the cello, which he played well enough to join the university orchestra in Laramie. And when Frank, Eva Busteed and I hauled our bicycles to Europe in 1974, Frank carried a harmonica with him. During evenings when all of the bikers and hikers settled down to eat and share their experiences around tiny campfires and cookstoves, Frank would often sit with his back against a tree improvising sweet tunes on his harmonica, absolutely unaware that anyone was paying attention.

During that same bike tour, Frank was the guy who always knew exactly where he was in space and time. There was no possibility of getting lost when Frank was around. He was tuned to the North Star. 

Frank married Karen Lynn Hayes, daughter of Chuck and Betty Hayes, in 1982. He had known her in high school, so she wasn’t a stranger. When they reconnected, she was a gorgeous divorced mother of three young children. Frank was smitten enough to figure that he was capable of taking on a full-fledged family and making it his own. He did not overestimate his skill and ability in that regard. He loved those kids, and they loved him. Frank and Karen had two more children and eventually built their dream home on the southern edge of Cowley.

After they married, Frank and Karen immediately embarked upon a journey through several businesses, trying to find one that satisfied their need for financial stability, as well as their need to feel happy and satisfied in their work. They sold DeKalb corn seed and MoorMan’s Feed to farmers and ranchers. They bought a vending business and often got called out to far-flung places to fix broken machines in the middle of wintery nights. It wasn’t what they wanted, and it wasn’t what Frank needed. He needed to be his own boss. He knew how he wanted his life to transpire. Finally, with the creation of Hinckley James, Inc., Frank went into residential and commercial building construction with his boys. He was home at last. 

Before putting the period at the end of this life history, I want to share a few “Frank stories,” because stories tell the real story. 

When they were boys no older than 10, Frank and cousin Bern decided to walk cross-country from Bern’s home in Powell to Cowley. Somewhere out there, they happened upon an injured raven, an enormous, squawky thing. Each of them grabbed a wing, and they hauled that raven clear across the Sandhills to Cowley, where it healed and proceeded to live an interesting life for a time in our backyard.

One time Frank, Bern and another cousin, Mart, of Shell hitchhiked to Cheyenne for Frontier Days. Frank and Mart were 12. Bern was 14. Three sets of parents and not a one was worried about those boys sticking out their thumbs to get themselves from one end of the state to the other. As Dad would say, “Them wuz the days.”

We had two sets of boxing gloves at home that were frequently pulled out just for a fun match or to settle an argument that couldn’t be settled in any other way. Goldie Welch was visiting. He and Frank were best friends since birth, but that didn’t mean they couldn’t have a friendly boxing match. Frank struck Goldie a mighty blow to the nose and the blood began to flow. After Goldie returned home, he wrote Frank a letter and sent it in the mail. “Now it’s my turn to blood your nose.” 

Frank loved a beautiful girl, just like his father before him. I heard him exclaim many times to his granddaughters how beautiful they were, that no other girls could even compare. What a fantastic guy he was to give those girls such a lift to their spirits and confidence. And he meant every word.

Frank and Karen, along with Schuyler and Ann, joined a Western swing class in Powell a few years ago. It was frustrating for Frank. He hated having to do things the way the dance instructors wanted them done. Their moves were straight out of the book. No improvisation. Frank finally threw up his hands, walked off the floor and said, “I’ve been throwing my wife around the dance floor for thirty years, and now that SOB is telling me I’m doing it all wrong.” That was his last dance class. 

Over the past few years, Frank loved to walk in the Sandhills every morning at sunrise. He shared his photos of Cowley as he viewed it from the top. Cowley in the morning sun, the morning snow, the morning mist. He was a man who was happy with simple pleasures. He thought that there was no place better on earth than right where he stood. He had the beautiful woman of his dreams by his side and a town full of kids and grandkids, friends and relatives. Heaven on Earth.

In 1988 there was a grand Hinckley reunion at Cove Fort, Utah. Cove Fort was built in the mid-1800s to provide sanctuary for travelers along the stagecoach/mail route through southern Utah. Two Hinckley brothers, Arza Erastus (our great-grandfather) and Ira Nathaniel, were called to help build the fort and then to oversee it. The fort was eventually restored by the LDS church as a historic site. At its dedication, Gordon B. Hinckley was the speaker of the day. Christian, Alex, Frank and I sang “The Lord’s Prayer.” Alex had been invited to further sing a solo, but she was developing a cold and didn’t dare risk it, so Frank jumped in cold and sang “One Voice…singing in the darkness…all it takes is one voice…singing so they hear what’s on your mind…and when you look around, you’ll find…there’s more than one voice…singing in the darkness…”

We have decided that Heavenly Father looked across his choir of singing angels the other day and decided that they needed the best tenor on earth to join them. And that is why Frank had to go.

Frank was preceded in death by parents Madge Marchant and DeVere Taggart Hinckley, brothers Christian Steele and Burgess Benedict Hinckley, sisters Alexandra Hinckley Cramer and Allison Hinckley Munkres, brother-in-law Jesse “Pony” Munkres and father-in-law Charles Hayes.

He is survived by his one true love and soul mate, Karen Hayes Hinckley; daughter Jami Loman; son Tre (Jamie) James; son Tony (Amber) James; daughter Amyntas Hinckley; son Tyler (Raichel) Hinckley; sister Maurine Hinckley-Cole; brother Schuyler (Ann) Hinckley; mother-in-law Betty Hayes; 15 grandchildren; two great-grandchildren; and a multitude of nieces and nephews, who think that he “pretty much walked on water.” 

 He was a force. His example will show them the way for eternity. 

A funeral service for Frank will be held Saturday, Nov. 29, at 3 p.m. in the Cowley LDS Church.