More than 50 years after a heart attack claimed the life of Yellowstone County Sheriff James Meeks at the age of 54, he is being recognized on the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial in Washington, D.C.
It’s the news Yellowstone County Undersheriff Robert Lester has been hoping for.
Watch the tribute to Meeks below:
Lester has spent the past few years battling for a man he never knew but has since learned a lot about.
“It took me down a lot of rabbit trails, but what I found out is he was a very honorable man who died in the line of the duty and was never recognized,” Lester says.
It was under the Yellowstone River Bridge in Laurel where Meeks answered his final call. The date was July 9, 1972.
“He was rescuing some boaters who had gotten trapped underneath the bridge and when he was coming back, he died of a heart attack," Lester said.
Meeks’ son Blake was 11 years old at the time and now lives in Butte.
“He lived a hero’s life and died a hero’s life and pulled them out from under the tree. He went to probably 150 percent exertion and that was it," Blake says.
“He was a wonderful guy. He was very charismatic—a really good law enforcement officer," Blake says.
Meeks spent 20 years in the Navy—a Pearl Harbor survivor in World War II as well as serving in the Korean War.
But the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial refused to recognize Meeks as an in the line of duty death.
“They said that what he was doing was not a stressful situation, and I countered that since the time of Lewis and Clark, any time you go on the Yellowstone River, it is stressful,” Lester said.
Just as Lester was about to give up, he got the news he’d been hoping for.
“The sheriff (Mike Linder) walked in the office, and he said, well you finally did it. He handed me the letter, and it was an approval,” Lester says.
Meeks' name will be formally dedicated at the memorial in D.C. during National Police Week on May 13, 2026.
While James Meeks spent less than two years as sheriff before dying in the line of duty, Lester says he made an impact that continues to this day.
“I found out that he was the founding father of the city-county investigation unit. That’s our current drug unit that we still, to this day, operate. He completely changed how the sheriff’s office operated with educated deputies—people getting training. A lot of the things that he implemented then live on now. It’s a huge day that he is finally recognized,” Lester says.
