Lawrence (Lorne) Bartling, age 94, died Saturday, April 25, 2009, at the Brookings Hospital in Brookings, South Dakota. Funeral services will be 10:30 A.M. Tuesday, April 28, 2009 at First Presbyterian Church, Brookings, with interment in Greenwood Cemetery. Visitations will be from 5-7 P.M. Monday at Eidsness Funeral Home. In lieu of flowers, memorials may be directed to First Presbyterian Church or the Boys and Girls Club of Brookings.

Lawrence (Lorne) Bartling, the son of Daisy (Lawrence) and Earl Bartling, was born in Pipestone, Minnesota, in 1915. Lorne received his education in Brookings and graduated from Brookings High School in 1933. He graduated from SDSC in 1938 with a degree in Civil Engineering and an ROTC Commission. He was employed as an engineer by the State Highway Department in Pierre, South Dakota, and Sverdrup and Parcel in St. Louis, Missouri.

In 1940, Lorne married Phyllis Gray of Parkston, South Dakota, in St. Louis. Lorne served as a captain in the US Army 69th Infantry Division in Europe during World War II and was awarded the Bronze Star. He joined Bartlings Furniture and Funeral business of Brookings with his father in 1946 and continued until retirement in 1992.

Lorne was an active member and elder of First Presbyterian Church. He was a member of Rotary (as a Paul Harris Fellow), American Legion, VFW, Elks and Jaycees. He served on the State College Development Association Board, the Brookings Chamber of Commerce Board of Directors, the Brookings Park and Recreation Board, the EdgeBrook Golf Course Planning Committee, the South Dakota Trails Committee and South Dakota Golf Association Board.

His athletic achievements included the South Dakota All-State High School Basketball team, the All-NCC Basketball Second Team, 3 runner-up finishes in the South Dakota State Match Play Golf Tournament, 2 South Dakota State Senior Golf Titles and 9 Brookings Country Club Championships. He was inducted into the South Dakota Golf Hall of Fame in 1985 and the Brookings High School Athletic Hall of fame in 2007. Lorne began running as a founding member of the Prairie Striders track club in 1969. He logged 25,000 miles by 1983, enough to have run around the world and achieved national age group rankings at various race distances.

Survivors include his wife of sixty-eight years, Phyllis; 3 daughters: Susan (Les) Hansen and Kathy (Carl) Thompson both of Dent, Minnesota, Becki (Mike) Bray of Sioux Falls; and a son, Dick (Kim) Bartling of Sioux Falls; 2 brothers: Bob of Brookings and Herb (Sharon) of San Antonio, Texas; 7 grandchildren and eleven great-grandchildren; and many nieces and nephews. He was preceded in death by his parents, 2 sisters and a brother.