{"id":23146,"date":"2026-03-18T17:18:10","date_gmt":"2026-03-18T23:18:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/?p=23146"},"modified":"2026-03-19T17:20:51","modified_gmt":"2026-03-19T23:20:51","slug":"after-42-years-a-quiet-exit-on-his-own-terms","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/2026\/03\/18\/after-42-years-a-quiet-exit-on-his-own-terms\/","title":{"rendered":"After 42 Years, A Quiet Exit On His Own Terms"},"content":{"rendered":"

Russ Mikel will retire as coroner<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

BY ISAIAH FRIZZELL<\/em><\/p>\n

Coroner Russ Mikel will step back from the role he has held for decades in Blaine County. Mikel is one of 44 elected coroners in the state. He is also a mortician, a job he fell into. He was taking a year off from college when he attended a friend\u2019s funeral and a mortician introduced himself and asked if he\u2019d be interested in an apprenticeship. Three months later, he was on the job. He hasn\u2019t really stopped since.
\nThat chance encounter set the course for more than four decades of service in the Wood River Valley such as helping to start the area\u2019s ambulance service in the mid-1970s, building its early EMT training program, operating the valley\u2019s only locally run funeral home, and serving as Blaine County coroner. This year, Mikel will step down from the public role, though not from his job as the county\u2019s only mortician.
\nMost people know Mikel through Wood River Chapel, on Main Street in Hailey. The coroner\u2019s role is separate. Contracted through the county and focused purely on determining cause and manner of death at the time it occurs, his mortuary science training, which he describes as \u201cprimarily pre-med-type things,\u201d prepared him well for both sides of the work. The county contracts the position, and he\u2019s run it out of his own facility for the past 40 years.
\nMikel\u2019s final stretch in the role has been complicated by new Ada County protocols governing how coroners must approach death scenes to qualify autopsy cases. The primary issue is timing \u2014 law enforcement arrives first, and the coroner\u2019s process adjusts accordingly. Public statements from local law enforcement have framed the situation in sharper terms.
\n\u201cThese are people I\u2019ve dealt with for years,\u201d Mikel said. \u201cI\u2019m really sorry to hear the public comments that have been made, because we\u2019ve gotten along good before. And we still can. We just need to follow the guidelines.\u201d
\nMikel noted with some encouragement that county commissioners are now working toward dedicated county facilities \u2014 a development he sees as a step in the right direction.
\nMikel puts the requirements of the job into proportion: three-quarters of the job, by his estimate, is spent with families\u2014listening, helping them plan, letting them talk about the person they\u2019ve lost. \u201cIt just feels really good to be able to help someone when you know they need the help.\u201d
\nHe won\u2019t close the funeral home until he finds the right person to carry it forward. \u201cI feel like I owe the community to have that resource.\u201d
\nMikel grew up in Twin Falls and has lived in the Wood River Valley long enough to watch it change dramatically. He raised a family here, worked search and rescue, trained German shepherds as search dogs, and has no plans to leave. \u201cWe\u2019ve been a part of this community for a long time,\u201d he said. \u201cI want it to be a good thing when we turn it over to someone else.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Russ Mikel will retire as coroner BY ISAIAH FRIZZELL Coroner Russ Mikel will step back from the role he has held for decades in Blaine County. Mikel is one of 44 elected coroners in the state. He is also a mortician, a job he fell into. He was taking a year off from college when […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":479,"featured_media":23147,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","_pvb_checkbox_block_on_post":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[65,72,18],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-23146","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-blaine-county","8":"category-community","9":"category-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23146","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/479"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23146"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23146\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23148,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23146\/revisions\/23148"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23147"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23146"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23146"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23146"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}