Leslie Ranard Burgum (Aug 26, 1890 - Aug 15, 1984)

A former North Dakota attorney general, Leslie R. Burgum, age 93, died Wednesday at Prairie View Nursing Home, Underwood. Services are planned at McCabe United Methodist Church, Bismarck, Boelter Funeral Home, Bismarck, is handling arrangements.

Mr Burgum, who lived at the above address, served as the states chief legal officer from 1955 to 1963, longer than any other attorney general. Mr Burgum always described himself as a middle-of-the-road public official. An ardent supporter of John Burke, William Jennings Bryan and Franklin Roosevelt, he was among the conservative Non-partisan League members who became Republicans when the NPL switched alignment to the Democratic Party in 1956. He was also an ordained Methodist minister.

Mr Burgum was born Aug 16, 1890, on a homestead west of Washburn. After his mothers death, he grew up with grandparents in Washburn, where he graduated from high school. He started his law career in 1910, as a clerk and stenographer with the firm of J.A. Hyland and W.E Nuessle. He also served as deputy school superintendent in McLean County and a Washburn city justice of the peace. While a law clerk, he also was starting a career in the Methodist Episcopal ministry. He was a lay minister, deacon and elder in a Washburn church, and was ordained in 1921. He served in the US Army for a short time during World War I, and major in law and religion at the University of North Dakota.

He married Blanche Gustafson in 1926, and, until he left the active ministry in 1952, served town and county churches at Underwood, Washburn, Arthur, Hunter, LaMoure, Larimore, Fargo, Jamestown and Spiritwood. At Fargo, he was superintendent of the Meyhodist Church Eastern North Dakota District from 1937 to 1942. He did not graduate from law school, but his law clerk experience helped him to qualify as an attorney and he passed the state bar exam in 1933.

Mr Burgums state political career began at Jamestown when he served as a state representive for Stutsman County in the 1935 and 1937 legislatures. He ran for lietenant governor on the Democratic ticket with John Moses in 1940, and returned to Jamestown to start a law practice in 1942, and also serve as city attorney and assistant county states attorney. He was elected states attorney of Stutsman County in 1953 and state att

After retiring, he continued as a substitute minister in Bismarck pulpits and at the State Legislature, and also was a part-time assistant in the state attorney generals office. He was active in several American Legion posts and Masonic organizations.

(The Bismarck Tribune, Thu 16 August 1984).

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