Rick Cook, a Giles County contractor who spent two terms as the county's treasurer, died unexpectedly Thursday. He was 45.

His wife, Kim Cook, said he wasn't feeling well and asked one of his sons to take him to Carilion Giles Memorial Hospital. He suffered a heart attack and died there, she said.

Kim Cook described her husband of 24 years -- and her sweetheart since she was 13 -- as a religious but ornery man who loved "to pick and carry on with people."

He was the owner of Cook's General Contracting in Narrows, where he lived his whole life. He started the company when he was 18, his wife said, and continued to work with it on and off, often while he juggled other jobs and coached his children's sports teams.

"He was always involved in whatever we did -- sports, anything," son Billy Cook said of his dad. "If we were doing something, he was there."

Once a football and baseball player at Narrows High School, where he graduated in 1981, Rick Cook coached his sons Billy, now 19, and Ricky, now 21, in baseball and flag football. He also coached his daughter, Brittany, throughout her varsity basketball career at Mercer Christian Academy in Princeton, W.Va.

"He said that was one of the greatest blessings he ever had," Kim Cook said.

Brittany Cook became a standout basketball player at Virginia Tech, leading the ACC in scoring last season. She graduated from Tech in May but returned to do graduate work.

"He was the best dad we could have asked for," Brittany Cook said. "He was a man that loved us with all of his heart. He gave us enough love while he was here that it's going to last a lifetime."

In addition to coaching at Mercer, Rick Cook taught math there for a couple of years. He was his daughter's math teacher, as well as her coach.

He also coached football at Narrows High School several years ago, when his boys were elementary school age.

Cook became Giles County's treasurer in 1992, winning the election over an incumbent. His tenure in office would be marked with controversy, including legal disputes with the Giles County Board of Supervisors and a woman he had hired.

Cook hired, then dismissed Jane Tabor before she had even worked a day in the treasurer's office. She filed a civil suit against him in 1992, alleging that he defamed her by telling a supervisor she had stolen money from a previous employer, something the employer denied. The case was settled out of court.

A dispute between Cook and the board of supervisors also ended up in court, where Cook was directed to submit monthly reports to the board.

Cook once compared his relationship with the supervisors to the gunfight at the OK Corral.

Despite the controversies, Giles County voters re-elected Cook to a second term in 1995 in a seven-way race.

He didn't compete for a third term, and in 1999, Gerald Duncan was elected treasurer.

"He always showed me a lot of courtesy, and he certainly did all he could to help me transition into the office," said Duncan, who is still the county's treasurer.

"He was a very friendly, charismatic type," Duncan said. "I liked Rick. I think everybody liked him."

Instead of running for a third term as treasurer, Cook took the teaching and coaching job at Mercer and got back into the contracting business.

Through Cook's General Contracting, Cook built houses and worked on general construction projects. His sons worked with him each summer when they were on vacation from school.

Ricky Cook has worked for the company full time for about two years, and Billy Cook joined it full time when he graduated from high school last year.

"He was never so proud of them as when they chose to go into the family business," Kim Cook said.

"It was great working with him," Ricky Cook said. "He'd always take time to show me."

Ricky and Billy Cook both said they plan to continue working with the family business.

"He's not gone," Kim Cook said of her husband. "He's here. He's within us all."