Belmont Bradford “Bud” DeHaven was born to Luther Milton and Virgie Pearl (McCoy) DeHaven on August 9, 1935 in Big Pool, Maryland. He was the youngest son of four children, and very proud of his heritage. His mother was a “feudin’ McCoy,” but never had a mean bone in her body. His father was a hard-working sharecropper and dairy farmer for many years until 1951, when they moved to Ringgold, Maryland, and Luther began working as a carpenter and machinist in a refrigeration equipment factory. Bud worked on the family farm until this move into town.
Bud went to work while in high school at an A & P Grocery Store, first as a stocker then as a Cashier. After graduation from Smithsburg High School in Smithsburg, Maryland, he went to work driving a truck for a hardware store. After about a year of that, he followed his family’s proud military service tradition and enlisted in the U. S. Army in 1956, where he served as a military policeman in Nancy, France for about 9 months before being reassigned to the 12th Ordinance Battalion in Germany working on the Special Weapons Detachment, building radar guidance systems for various atomic warheads.
After an honorable discharge in 1959, he went to work for Magnavox as a line inspector/tester building aircraft radar systems. It would be during this time that he would meet a tall blonde lady named Catherine at a Tall Peoples’ Club gathering, and they would fall in love. They married about eight months after they started dating on April 16, 1960. It must’ve been meant to be because they just celebrated their 60th anniversary this past spring. Bud and Kate would have two children, Denise Dianne (DeHaven) Rogers, and Bradley Lynn DeHaven.
Bud was quickly promoted to foreman, then general foreman, and transferred to the Color TV manufacturing division when RCA lost their patent in 1965. This would be the first of many moves over the years for the family, as they relocated to East Tennessee in Morristown. Bud would be promoted again to Manufacturing Manager a few years later, and was recruited by Philco Electronics in Philadelphia, and then by Warwick Electronics located in Covington, Tennessee. In 1975, the family moved west to Colorado, where Bud began running a factory that built Television Station consoles. Shortly thereafter the family moved to Nashville, Tennessee, and then to Brownsville, Texas, as Bud began to shape his career of corporate troubleshooting and industrial engineering. Working for Zenith Radio Corporation of Texas in 1976, Bud moved a factory across the Rio Grande River to Matamoros as one of the early Maquilas along the US/Mexico border. This began a twenty-five year career of manufacturing consumer and medical electronics on two sides of the river.
By 1992, he had achieved the title and position of President of Operations for Condor Corporation, which manufactured medical power supplies in three factories in three different states. Bud retired in 2001, with a career that spanned 42 years, over ten states and two countries.
Bud was active in Church, too, from the earliest days. As a youth, he was elected as Sunday School Superintendent, led a youth choir (he couldn’t sing!!), played church league softball, held every office in the church, was a certified (Basic and Advanced Lay Speaker) for 23 years, and helped to lead a mission team five times to Louisiana and east Texas doing hurricane relief work (he was the second youngest member of the team at the age of 72!). He has been a faithful follower of Jesus Christ since childhood and has lived his life trying to help other people come to know Christ. Every time the family moved to a new home, Bud would always go ahead of the family, and not just find a home, but find a church home as well. It was the first thing he would do.
He held many hobbies and interests: hunting, golf, gun collecting, camping, church league softball, playing bridge and poker, public speaking, and acting in the Little Theatre Troupe in Covington, Tennessee. He served as president of the West Tennessee Chapter of the American Cancer Society, and was an active member of the Royal Ridge Neighborhood Cellular on Patrol for many years. He played high school sports (football, basketball, baseball, track), semi-professional baseball for the farm teams for the former Washington Senators (now known as the Texas Rangers), coached both little league baseball (14 years) and Pop Warner PeeWee Football (2 years), and umpired Pony League baseball for several years.
He was and always shall be a loving husband, father, grandfather, uncle, cousin, and friend, but above all, he is evermore a beloved child of God.
Belmont Bradford “Bud” DeHaven died at home on October 25, 2020, in San Antonio, Texas. He was preceded in death by his parents, Luther and Virgie DeHaven, by his two brothers, Kenneth DeHaven and Leon DeHaven, and by his sister, Laura Mae (DeHaven) Dunn.
He is survived by his beloved wife of 60 years, Catherine M. (Kehler) DeHaven, of San Antonio; by his daughter, Denise Dianne (DeHaven) Rogers (Truman) of El Centro, California; by his son, Bradley Lynn DeHaven (Lisa) of Corpus Christi, Texas; by his grandchildren, William Bradford Rogers of Imperial, California; Kaitlyn Elizabeth DeHaven of Urbana, Illinois; and Braedon Joseph DeHaven of San Antonio, Texas; by many nieces and nephews, cousins, and many, many friends.
The Funeral Service will be on Thursday, October 29th at 10:00 am at St. Andrew's United Methodist Church; 722 Robinhood Place, San Antonio, TX 78209. The Committal Service will follow at Sunset Memorial Park at 11:00 am. In lieu of flowers, the family requests that gifts may be made to the St. Andrew’s United Methodist Church Memorial Fund, or to St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital of Memphis, Tennessee.
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