Friends say Gordon Lee Rowan, one of the American hostages killed in the siege at a natural gas complex in Algeria, was planning to retire soon to his family's cabin in a remote former gold-mining town in Eastern Oregon so he could spend more time hunting, fishing, snowmobiling and visiting family.

Longtime friends Toni Thompson and Myron Woodley in Sumpter said Tuesday that the 58-year-old Rowan spent Christmas with his two sons in California, and then left Sumpter the first week in January to fly out of Boise for another monthlong shift at the gas field.

Thompson told the Statesman Rowan's aunts live in the Treasure Valley.