HELENA, Mont. (AP) – LeRoy Beckman went to secondhand stores for hearing aids and heated only one room of his small Montana house. He got around in an old panel truck, favored bib overalls and found Social Security adequate in his old age.

“He looked dirt poor,” said his friend Jim McDermand.

But the frugal old bachelor had an estate upward of $3 million when he died in 1997 at 88. And it turned out that the curmudgeon secretly had a benevolent side.

The Great Falls farmer directed in his will that his money be used to buy up land and donate it to the state for use by hunters.

Now, the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks is fully realizing Beckman’s legacy. The state is about to formally receive the fourth and final piece of land bought with Beckman’s money, now exhausted.

The four contiguous tracts – called the Beckman Wildlife Management Area – will amount to about 6,500 scenic acres, including grasslands, pine and fir trees, gentle slopes, coulees and the Judith River. The land is inhabited by antelope, wild turkeys, pheasants, foxes, coyotes, raptors, songbirds, an occasional mountain lion and, of particular importance to Beckman, mule deer.

“It had to be mule-deer habitat, not elk habitat,” said McDermand, personal representative for the Beckman estate. “He didn’t like elk.” Beckman also specified that a river flow through the property.

Beckman’s generosity is “a testament to basic decency and civic involvement,” said Steve Doherty, chairman of the Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks Commission.

The civic involvement, though, came posthumously. Beckman was a loner, trusted few people and was happiest in the wild, hunting.

Jim Luoma of Sand Coulee, who became Beckman’s friend through a mutual interest in guns, said Beckman grew up poor, farmed as a young man, put money in gold stocks and got a handsome return, then invested profitably in oil. Luoma believes his friend was a savvy investor who also had a smart adviser.

Beckman’s lone sibling, half-sister Evelyn Fish of Great Falls, said he liked to read, loved his dog, obeyed hunting laws scrupulously and loathed hunters who did not do so.

Because of McDermand’s affiliation with the Montana Wildlife Federation, Beckman went to him for help in arranging his financial affairs.

“He felt he wasn’t going to make it too much longer and said he had quite a bit of money that he would like to donate to mule-deer habitat,” McDermand said.

“When we finished he said, “Don’t tell any … women or lawyers about this,”‘ McDermand added. “He didn’t trust either one.”

McDermand did persuade Beckman to meet with Great Falls lawyer Kirk Evenson, after describing Evenson as an avid sportsman. Beckman had prepared a voluminous will that needed work, and Evenson was part way into the job when Beckman died. After a judge acknowledged his intent, his wishes were carried out.

Evenson said he met with Beckman about four times before the man would disclose his wealth. “He said, “What do you need to know that for?”‘ the lawyer recalled. “I said, “Well, you know, in estate planning …”‘

“Even though he was a curmudgeon, his heart was really in the right place for the wildlife and the sportsmen of Montana,” McDermand said.

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