Friends, family and colleagues honor lost deputy

Wednesday, June 3, 1998 | 1:23 a.m.

Uniformed officers from dozens of agencies throughout northern Nevada and California were at the lakeside service, held a few hundred yards from where Callahan drowned.

Callahan, 54, and his partner, Wes Rice, were getting a ride back to shore from their moored patrol board when a dinghy piloted by harbormaster Chris Burke capsized in rough water.

Rice and Burke managed to swim to safety but Callahan went down in 15 feet of water.

"Although Ed's life was cut drastically short, it seems somehow appropriate that he passed from this earth as he did," said Sheriff Ron Pierini. "He died in Lake Tahoe next to his boat after completing yet another tour of duty serving us."

Callahan joined the Douglas County sheriff's office in May 1995 after retiring from the U.S. Customs Service, where he had been West Coast director of the agency's station in Riverside, Calif.

He had worked for the Customs Service since 1971, following a seven-year stint with the Marine Corps that included three tours of duty in Vietnam.

archive