When Meredith Saunders Urick graduated from Virginia Military Institute in 1935, during the Great Depression, jobs were hard to come by.

In 1936, the Virginia State Police hired him as a trooper to work in the Covington area.

Mr. Urick, who retired in 1972 as commander of the state police's Division of Personnel and Training, died Friday in a Henrico County nursing home of complications after falling and breaking a hip. He was 96.

A graveside service, with a state police honor guard, will be held Monday at 1 p.m. in Westhampton Memorial Park, 10000 Patterson Ave.

"The first day you came to work, he gave you an introduction or orientation," said state police First Sgt. D. Wayne Holland. "He taught the training manual, public speaking and other courses, which is how everyone met him."

After working in Covington, the Roanoke native moved to Richmond and was assigned to the area on U.S. 1 between Richmond and Petersburg.

Although he refused a commission at his VMI graduation, Mr. Urick accepted one as an Army second lieutenant in early 1941 and served in Puerto Rico until the U.S. entered the war.

He was assigned as a personnel executive officer with the 390th Fighter Squadron of the 366th Fighter Group. His group moved into Normandy after D-Day and continued into Germany. He was discharged as a lieutenant colonel and later retired from the Army Reserve as a colonel.

When he returned home after the war, the state police were organizing a personnel and training division that would provide troopers their first formal training. As the division's first captain, Mr. Urick set up rigorous training standards and exhaustive background investigations on recruits, according to a General Assembly resolution honoring him.

After retiring, "he stayed attached," Holland said. "He was a model trooper, kind of a legend . . . . Any time we had a function, we continued to recognize him as our oldest living retired state trooper."

Mr. Urick was the widower of Lois Barnes "Barney" Urick, who died in 1987.

He is survived by a son, Meredith S. "Nick" Urick Jr. of Richmond, two grandchildren and one great-grandchild.