Former Lt. Gov. Karl Ohs, a soft-spoken rancher whose negotiating skills helped bring the Freemen standoff to a peaceful end in 1996, died Sunday morning of complications from brain cancer.

Ohs, 61, died at his Helena home surrounded by family members. He had been diagnosed with brain cancer in March.

Funeral arrangements are pending.

In 2005, Ohs was elected chairman of the Montana Republican Party, but he did not seek re-election this year.

A rancher from Harrison, Ohs was elected to the Montana House of Representatives three times and served in 1995, 1997 and 1999. He was a majority whip the latter two sessions. He also served for nine years on the school board in Harrison in Madison County.

As a legislator, Ohs said he was proudest of his involvement in the state's effort in 1997 to buy many of the historical properties of Virginia and Nevada cities.

In 2000, Ohs was elected Montana's lieutenant governor on the Republican ticket headed by Judy Martz. They served from January 2001 to January 2005 and didn't seek re-election.

"He was an honorable man," Martz said Sunday. "His word and his handshake were as good as anything you could have on paper. He worked real hard as lieutenant governor. He was a great negotiator with legislators and worked on water issues on the Hi-Line and the ultimate proof of that when he negotiated with the Freemen."

Martz said she last saw Ohs Nov. 18, which was his birthday and the same day as his new grandson was born.

"Karl knew that he wasn't going to be here very long, but he also had great peace about where he was going," Martz said. "He was a true man of God and wasn't afraid to tell that to anybody."

Former House Speaker John Mercer, R-Polson, called it "a very sad day for all of Montana to lose Karl Ohs because he was the ultimate gentleman for any occasion he was involved with."

"I think he would be the person in politics that any person would aspire to be," Mercer said. "He would be the role model. There aren't many people in politics like Karl Ohs, but there should be."

Ohs' nephew, former state Sen. Duane Grimes, R-Clancy, said, "What he showed us is you can be a politician and show dignity and respect, even to your adversaries, and still be effective."

As lieutenant governor, Ohs was chosen by his peers nationally to head the National Lieutenant Governors Association.

In 1996, the anti-government Freemen were holed up in a ranch near Jordan in Garfield County in eastern Montana. Ohs helped negotiate an end to the standoff, making 19 trips by horseback into the armed compound where he served as a mediator between the FBI and the Freemen.

National news coverage showed Ohs, often wearing a yellow rain slicker, riding his horse alone into the armed compound. In 1998, the FBI awarded Ohs with the Louis E. Peters Memorial Service Award, its highest award for civil service.

In a 2000 interview, Ohs said the daughter of a man who worked for him on his ranch was one of among those at the Freemen compound. He and the woman's father traveled to Jordan to the father could see her and figured they'd be home in a day. She left the Freemen compound a few weeks later, but the standoff continued for nearly three months.

"But a relationship has developed between myself and the Freemen and the FBI," Ohs told the Lee Newspapers State Bureau in 2000. "Everything had to be kind of a trust relationship. As different initiatives would come forward, either thought up by the Freemen or brought up by the FBI or some other person, they would use me as the person who would go in and say, 'All right, here's what we've got. What do you think?' "

Then-U.S. Attorney Sherry Matteucci told the Associated Press in 1997 that the Freeman standoff might have not ended peacefully without Ohs' efforts.

"He's a very calm, thoughtful, classic Montana straight-shooting trustworthy guy," she said.

Besides his involvement in politics and ranching, Ohs and his wife, Sherri, owned several businesses in Helena, including storage units, rental property and more recently, Montana Records Management.

Karl and Sherri Ohs also led several missionary trips for the Evangelical Covenant Church to Mexico and Poland.

Born Nov. 18, 1946, in Malta, Ohs was raised on a ranch there and was a wrestler at Malta High School.

Ohs hadn't intended to attend college. He was planning to work on a ranch when he got a letter from Montana State University's wrestling coach offering him a partial scholarship worth $180 a year. He enrolled at MSU and won two Big Sky Conference wrestling championships.

While completing his degree in agricultural economics, Ohs' father broke his leg calving, and Ohs was called home to the ranch, which was later moved to Harrison, to help. He dropped out of MSU just 18 credits short of graduation, joined the National Guard, got married and started a family.

More than three decades later, Ohs completed his degree while he was lieutenant governor. He delivered the commencement address at MSU at the same ceremony when he received his diploma.

As a rancher, Ohs helped found and became the chairman of MAGPIE, Montana Agriculture Producers Inc., and spearheaded the production and marketing of such then-alternative crops as malt barley, weed-free hay and canola.

Survivors include his wife, Sherri of Helena; mother, Sylvia of Malta; brother, Jerry of Pony; and sisters, Dolores Stebbins of Green Valley, Ariz., and Karen Wiederrick of Malta. Ohs had seven grandchildren and a number of nieces, nephews and cousins.

His father, Carl Ohs, preceded him in death.