Ronald Mason Harless was born February 18, 1933 in Lower Brule, South Dakota to Ralph and Doris (Evans) Harless. He died peacefully on April 3rd, 2021 at the Mpls VA Home. He is survived by his wife of 63 years, Reta, and his five children, Mary (Steve) Harris, Mark (Debra), Laurie (Peter) Stricker, Susan (Steve) Ghostley, and Stuart. Survived by 6 grand children, Stephanie, Andrew, Gretchen, Emily, Mason and Duncan. And 6 great grand children - Tessa, Laney, Josiah, Wesley, Addison and Nora Jo. Also survived by two sisters, Lenore Cain of New Mexico and Doris Heibner of Illinois. He was preceeded in death by his parents, an infnat brother Russell, and a younger brother Tom. Ronald attended school in Basin Wyoming, graduated from the University of Wyoming with honors in 1955 with a civil engineering degree. After college he reported to Fort Carson, CO to serve his 2 year military term as a lieutenant in the Army. While serving in the Army Corps of Engineers as they were building the Grand Forks Air Force Air Base, he met and married Reta Hodgson in Cavalier, North Dakota in 1957. He served with the Corps in Sioux City, Iowa and Rapid City, South Dakota. In 1962 he left the Corps and went to work as a field engineer for the Portland Cement Association in South Dakota.
In 1967, he made a career change when he was asked to start a Concrete Technology course at the new Anoka Vocational College - one of the first five instructors at that college. He taught there until he retired in 1988 and then started teaching for MN DOT and Aggregate and ReadyMix of Minnesota (ARM). He wrote their curriculumn and taught their certification courses for many years. In 2002, he received their Liftetime Achievement Award from ARM of MN. Ron was an avid fisherman - loving the trout streams in the Big Horn Mountains of WY, and the Boundary waters of MN - or any body of water he could find. He loved all music and could entertain anyone with his ukelele. Due to covid restrictions, no service will be held at this time. Burial will be at Fort Snelling, Mpls, MN Memorials preferred to Camp Lebanon, Burtrum, MN 56318 a church camp that Ron worked with for many years.