Jun. 24—VALLEY CITY, N.D. — As a commercial truck driver for nearly 30 years, Marlin “Herb” Kiser amassed well over 4 million miles on the road.
Over that long stretch, he had only one serious crash in which he and a load of cattle were run off the road by another semi. A handful of cows died; Kiser was not hurt.
But the 58-year-old Valley City man recently met an untimely death in a circumstance that again was not his fault, the warning coming in the form of a huge cloud of dust.
On May 25, driving his personal vehicle for a weeklong vacation, Kiser’s pickup was pelted by a load of rocks inadvertently dumped on the highway from an oncoming semi trailer.
Kiser was struck by a rock that crashed through the windshield. He died soon after at a hospital.
Law enforcement notified his ex-wife Becky Kiser, with whom he remained close, and she drove past the scene on the way to the hospital, seeing the large rocks covering the highway.
“I just don’t get how the semi driver didn’t see it, how he didn’t realize it,” Becky Kiser said about the spilling load.
North Dakota Highway Patrol Capt. Bryan Niewind said no charges have been filed against the semi driver, 65-year-old Lyle Hansen, of Valley City, and the patrol has not yet reviewed the crash investigation with the LaMoure County State’s Attorney.
A post-crash inspection found no problems with the mechanical system that opens the bottom doors on the belly dump trailer.
Hansen was adamant that he did not toggle the switch, either on accident or on purpose, Niewind said. Hansen did not return a call from The Forum.
Becky Kiser is left wondering how it could have happened and grieving the loss of the person who remained her best friend, despite their split.
The family roots went even deeper, as Herb Kiser raised Becky Kiser’s two daughters as his own. They called him Herb rather than dad.
Danielle Holmstrom said most people thought her mom and Herb were still together.
“We were a family. We are his family,” she said.
Herb Kiser was born and raised in Valley City and after high school enlisted in the Army National Guard, serving three years until a serious knee injury caused him to be honorably discharged.
In April 1992, he married Becky Pederson and soon after began his trucking career with brother-in-law Joe Anderson. Herb Kiser had a short stint with Bobcat of Gwinner, North Dakota.
Then, he took a big step and purchased a semi to work on his own for a few years.
“He was really proud of his semi,” Danielle said.
He next moved to Wehlander Bros. Trucking, where he was employed at the time of his death. Becky Kiser said he liked driving truck because the money was good and he met a lot of people.
“The only two states he hadn’t been in were Hawaii and Alaska,” she said.
While he didn’t take risks on the job, he had a different approach during his free time.
Herb Kiser enjoyed flying down the road on a Harley motorcycle and running around the farmstead in his all-terrain Polaris General, from which he took a few spills.
Friend Dawayne “Dewey” Kruger from nearby Oriska said he had enough sense to not get in the side-by-side with Herb Kiser.
“When he was driving something, get out of the way,” Kruger said.
Herb Kiser also loved to go boating, fishing and golfing in the summer, enjoying hunting and snowmobiling in the winter.
Another favorite activity was setting off explosive targets with a firearm.
Herb and Becky Kiser moved to his grandfather’s farmstead southwest of Valley City in 2005, and a sloping hill in the distance on the property became a good backdrop for those blasts.
“Blowing up stuff” was just one of many things they enjoyed doing together.
But 10 years ago, a petty argument led to an abrupt divorce because both were too stubborn to apologize, Becky Kiser said.
They were soon drawn back to each other and became as close as ever, though living separately. Many friends thought they were still married.
They bought a pickup together last year that Becky Kiser used while he was working and he’d use when he came home on the weekends.
Herb Kiser was driving that silver 2019 Dodge Ram pickup when he was killed.
Herb Kiser and his buddy, Gary Engstrom, of Leeds, North Dakota, had been traveling to South Dakota for weeklong fishing trips for many years.
Early morning on May 25, the two packed up their gear, hitched a boat to the back of the Kisers’ pickup and headed south out of Valley City.
Not even an hour down the road at about 8:10 a.m., around 8 miles north of Verona on state Highway 1, things unraveled in a hurry.
Engstrom would later describe to Becky Kiser how puzzled the men were by a huge cloud of white dust billowing from the trailer of an approaching 1999 Kenworth semi.
“All Herb said was, ‘What the hell is that?'” Becky Kiser recounted Engstrom saying.
A Highway Patrol crash report states the trailer’s entire load of rocks, each measuring from 3 to 8 inches in diameter, came tumbling out from the moving semi.
“As the vehicles met, rocks were bouncing everywhere,” the report stated.
Engstrom told Becky Kiser it was “like being hit by meteorites.”
“He said they were bouncing off the front end of the pickup. They were hitting the windshield, hitting the hood,” she said.
Engstrom got on the floor under the dashboard while Herb Kiser slammed on the brakes and leaned over to the right.
One rock passed through the lower part of the windshield, bounced off the dash and the steering wheel and struck Herb Kiser in the head before landing in the back seat.
Still, Herb Kiser managed to keep his foot on the brake until the pickup came to a complete stop.
First on the scene was a passerby who happened to be a paramedic. Then came a farmer from a nearby field who saw what happened.
An ambulance crew treated Herb Kiser on the scene and rushed him to a hospital in Oakes, 15 miles south, where he died.
Neither Engstrom nor the semi driver, Hansen, were hurt.
Becky Kiser said an officer told her investigators tried unsuccessfully to replicate the actions of the semi and belly dump trailer during tests after the incident.
Niewind said the semi had crossed a bridge just before the rock spilled, and it’s possible the vehicle’s jostling might have caused the belly dump system to malfunction.
It is also possible the switch was toggled by Hansen in the cab of the semi, Niewind said, despite Hansen saying he did not do so.
Again, investigators found no mechanical issue with the belly dump system.
The Forum tried to contact Herb’s only biological child, 39-year-old Jeremy Kiser of Missouri, but did not hear back.
“I’m assuming there’s going to be a lawsuit,” Becky Kiser said of her ex-husband’s death.
Becky Kiser and others said Herb Kiser had been talking casually about death in the weeks leading up to the accident.
He told friends and family he “didn’t want people crying over him” and didn’t even want a funeral.
Still, he was memorialized during a celebration of life on Friday, June 9, at Riverbend Farm in Valley City. His body had been cremated.
Following the remembrance, family and friends gathered on Herb Kiser’s rural farmstead, standing far back from that sloping hill.
There, they took turns paying tribute to Herb by firing away at plastic jugs filled with explosive material lined up on the hillside.
It was a fitting way to honor a guy who Becky Kiser said was “one of a kind.”
Kruger said he misses his friend, who was down to earth and quick to share with others.
“If I ran out of deer sausage, he would tell me … you know where the freezer’s at, … go help yourself. That was just the way he was,” Kruger said.
Life should never be taken for granted, and Herb Kiser’s death has reinforced that belief, said Kent Korf, of Sanborn, a friend since they were teenagers.
“I tell all my grandkids and everybody else … live your life to the fullest because you don’t know when you’re gonna be gone,” Korf said.
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