ATHENS, Ga. -- U.S. Forest Service law enforcement officer Chris Upton patrolled the woods just south of Athens for only four years, but he dedicated most of his adult life to protecting the wildlife and visitors in the woods.

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KELLY WEGEL/MORRIS NEWS SERVICE

Officers wore black or green bands over their badges to honor Chris Upton during his memorial service Saturday at the Classic Center in Athens. Upton, a U.S. Forest Service law enforcement officer, was on duty in the Oconee National Forest on March 5 when he was shot by a hunter who mistook him for a coyote.

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Hundreds of U.S. Forest Service officers and employees converged on the Classic Center in Athens on Saturday to share their favorite stories of Upton, who was accidentally shot by a hunter in the Oconee National Forest in Monticello on March 5.

"Since I first got the news that Chris had been shot, I've been struggling, trying to make sense of this situation and come to some reasonable understanding of those events," said patrol Capt. Stuart Delugach, Upton's supervisor. "But what I do know is that Chris did it right. We all know the job that we've undertaken has inherent dangers and risks. He took the dangers of the job seriously, and he trained hard with an intensity that was second to none. ... He always strove to be the best."

The memorial service, which was held at the Classic Center because of the size of the venue and proximity to the Oconee National Forest, was a rare occurrence for the forest service, which hasn't lost a Southeastern officer in the line of duty since 1998, said forest service spokeswoman Stephanie Neal Johnson.

Upton was shot in the Ocmulgee Bluff Equestrian Recreation Area on March 5 when Norman Clinton Hale, 40, McDonough mistook him for a coyote, according to the forest service.

The hunters dialed 911, but Upton had died instantly. The U.S. Forest Service and state Department of Natural Resources are investigating, but no charges have been filed.

Upton routinely worked with rangers from the state Department of Natural Resources and National Fish and Wildlife Service, making sure that hunters adhered to the state's seasonal rules, did not bait wildlife in federal forests and avoided hunting from the road.

And while Upton, 37, was originally from Florida, his Georgia co-workers quickly adopted him as one of their own, said Billy Bryant, a state DNR ranger who often searched the forest with Upton looking for illegal activity.

Bryant met Upton for the first time on the opening day of turkey-hunting season in 2006; the team was charged with tracking down hunters who were illegally baiting turkey.

"I decided I was going to mess with that old Florida boy a little bit," Bryant said. "I said, 'Look here, see that house over there, it's nasty inside. In fact, it's a buzzard roost. But if we crawl inside there, I believe we'll have the drop on these guys.' I really was kidding about that house, but he crawled up in it. I went with him not to be outdone."

Bryant and Upton spent the next three hours suffering the stench inside the abandoned house. Bryant kept asking Upton if he wanted to leave, but Upton insisted that the hunters had to come back sooner or later.

Bryant knew that his new friend had turned the tables on him and was daring him to give up first.

The hunters finally returned, and the officers fined them for baiting their prey.

"I told him that I liked him even if he was from Florida," Bryant said. "He laughed at me and said, 'Yep, Billy Bryant, I think we're going to get along really good,' and he was right."

Tracking down illegal hunters led to many late nights and early mornings in the quiet of the woods, and those hours build strong bonds between game wardens and forest rangers, Bryant said.

"When you work in remote locations, primarily alone and with no one else around you for miles, you think about a lot of things," Bryant said. "For me, (I would usually wish) that I had someone to talk to out here. So, when you find out you're going to be working with someone ... you've got all the things you want to talk about already on your mind.

"Eventually, you run out of manly and macho things to talk about, so the conversations always go to discussion of our families ... By talking so much about our families, without even realizing it, you get to know them so well that you consider them part of your own family.

"I saw Chris' wife and daughter for this first time last Tuesday, but they weren't strangers. They were family."

While they knew each other like brothers, Upton never let things get too heavy before making a joke, said Thomas Payne, who worked with Upton for years on a task force rooting out people who hunt from cars in the Oconee National Forest.

Most of their time was spent setting out a fake decoy deer named "Bucky" just within the tree line and waiting for a passing motorist to shoot at it. Then the officers would chase down the lazy hunter or catch him when he came to retrieve his prize, Payne said.

The last time Payne and Upton worked together, they had just received a new decoy deer. Upton called Payne out of the blue in January to see if he wanted to try it out.

"So here I am; Chris has influenced me to sit out on an ice-cold night in January and work that decoy," Payne said. "Chris' new deer decoy was a (remote control) tail-wagger, head-turner and a stomper. ... When he turned that remote control on, Chris started flipping all those switches and that deer started spinning its head, wagging its tail and stomping at the same time. It was the most ridiculous thing I'd ever seen.

"That same night, Chris laid up there looking at the stars and said, 'I can't believe I get paid to do this.' I heard him say that a lot when he was doing work like that. I think we stayed out there about four hours and nobody even drove by. But it didn't matter to him. He loved that part of the job."