Bennett L. “Bud” Vance, 86, of Chapel Hill, NC, died March 12, 2013. Born in Warren, OH on January 2, 1927, he was the son of Bennett Newton and Martha Lee Vance. He lived with his parents and two sisters in Bristolville, Ohio until the age of five when, during the Great Depression, the family moved to Deland, Florida, where his grandfather was sheriff of Volusia County. They traveled in a 1929 Chevrolet with their German Shepherd, Tom, on the running board and his mother playing Stephen Foster songs on her ukulele.

Bud had fond memories of growing up in the pine woods of Deland, fishing and swimming among water moccasins and alligators in Lake Linley, talking politics with his best friend, Richard Martin, during their early morning paper routes, boating down the St. Johns river, playing football for the Deland Bulldogs, and playing trombone in a marching band led by John Heney, a member of the John Philip Sousa band in the 1920s. He attended Deland High School and obtained his high school degree from Pearl River County Agricultural High School in Poplarville, Mississippi in 1944. Following graduation he turned down a football scholarship offer at Ole Miss and hitchhiked from Mississippi to Columbus, Ohio, a trip highlighted by a ride from the pilot of the Memphis Belle, the famous WWII “flying fortress.” He enrolled at Ohio State but left college in 1945 to volunteer for the army, where he won awards for marksmanship and in one instance was rewarded with a ride back to the base in a jeep during a 20 mile march. He was based for a time in the Philippine Islands, and served on a ship headed for the invasion of Japan in 1945 when the atomic bomb was dropped at Hiroshima, after which they turned around to Hawaii and then home. Following his time in the army, he enrolled again at Ohio State, working nights as a hospital orderly and bartender, and graduated in 1949.

After working in the oil fields of Texas for one year, Bud enrolled in dental school at Ohio State and in 1954 married Marilyn Lee Bridge of Delaware, Ohio, his wife of 59 years. He constructed her wedding band in the OSU dental lab using melted dimes. After earning his DDS degree at Ohio State, the couple moved to Cambridge, Ohio and later Willoughby, Ohio, during which time he opened a general dentistry practice. Eight years later the couple returned to Columbus, Ohio where Bud completed oral surgery residency at Ohio State. He served on the Ohio State oral surgery faculty beginning in 1965 and later opened a small private practice in Columbus, where he worked until retiring in 1984.

Bud was a loving, devoted, and always supportive father and husband. He was known for his frugal lifestyle and his love of animals, early mornings in his organic garden, U.S. history, Ohio State football, Euell Gibbons, and Thoreau. He enjoyed bicycling, traveling and camping with Marilyn, and identifying wild plants and mushrooms. He is survived by his wife, Marilyn Bridge Vance, son, Eric Douglas Vance, and grandson, Spalding Clark Vance, all of whom reside in Chapel Hill. He was preceded in death by two sisters, Jeanne Maxine Frell and Martha Mae (Dixie) Lindburg, and daughter-in-law, Anne Layton Schroder.