ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, July 28, 1996 TAG: 9607290054
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: BEDFORD
SOURCE: RICHARD FOSTER STAFF WRITER
When Buck Lovelace's Rotary buddies suggested he take another turn as president of their local chapter this year, Lovelace figured he might as well. After all, the last time the 81-year-old Bedford dentist headed the club was in 1946 - 50 years ago.
That might seem like a long time between terms, but no one could ever accuse E.Y. Lovelace Jr. of shirking responsibility.
Since he moved to Bedford in 1940, Lovelace has served on the county Board of Supervisors and county School Board as well as the Town Council and town School Board before Bedford became a city in 1968. And that's not to mention his stints as a Scoutmaster, president of the Chamber of Commerce, and chairman of the Bedford Foundation and his church's board of deacons.
"The Good Lord gave me the opportunity to be of service, and it was just as natural as breathing as far as I was concerned," Lovelace said. "If you like a place, you give back. Bedford's been mighty good to me, and I feel I owe them a little bit. You just feel a responsibility."
"His status in the community has always been excellent," said Tom Jennings, a longtime Bedford civic leader and Rotary Club member. "I don't know how much higher you can get. ... He's a mighty fine fellow."
And Lovelace isn't just one of Jennings' oldest friends; he's also his dentist. "Matter of fact, I saw him a couple of weeks ago," Jennings, a retired physician, said. "But I'm at the stage now where I can leave my teeth behind and come back later."
Pete Viemeister, a Rotary Club member, said of Lovelace: "The whole idea of Rotary is service. Buck, his actions, epitomize what Rotary's supposed to be. You look for ways to make the community better. He doesn't look at things and say, `Somebody ought to do something about that.' He does it."
Lovelace earned his dentistry degree from the Medical College of Virginia in 1940. He decided to practice in Bedford, he said, because "My first wife was from Mississippi and I was from North Carolina, so we split it."
Within a year or so of settling his family in Bedford, Lovelace joined the Rotary and took one of his first volunteer jobs, leading his church's Boy Scout troop. Even though he knew almost nothing about Scouting, he filled in, he said, out of a sense of responsibility after the previous Scoutmaster, a friend, was killed in a car crash.
Over the next few years, Lovelace joined the town School Board, became president of the Bedford Rotary Club and successfully ran for Town Council.
As Rotary Club president, Lovelace sponsored a charity automobile raffle for a new Chevrolet when new cars became available again after World War II. The raffle raised $2,775. "That was some money then," he recalled.
One of three dentists in Bedford at the time, Lovelace was held stateside during the war because one of his colleagues was already overseas and the other took ill, leaving Lovelace the only practicing dentist in the Bedford County area.
During his Rotary presidency, the Bedford club raised seed money to build what is now Carilion Bedford Memorial Hospital. It sponsored football games, gave a gold football to the county's most valuable high school football player, and held Christmas parties at the county poorhouse.
The Bedford Rotary also sponsored polio clinics and tonsillectomies at the local high schools. Back in the '40s, many people in the rural community didn't have money for what today is a routine surgical procedure, Lovelace said.
"Local surgeons would go to the high school gyms, put the kids to sleep, and we Rotarians would sit with them until they were well enough to go home," he said. "Sometimes, they stayed overnight."
Except for service during the Korean War, Lovelace has stayed in Bedford. Some things have changed since he first came, of course. Instead of three dentists, there are more than 15 serving the area today. Then, the Rotarians had a radio at their meetings. Today, they have TVs and VCRs.
But as for Bedford itself, Lovelace doesn't think it's that much different. "It was a beautiful place then, and it's still one of the prettiest places in the world," he said.
Another thing that hasn't changed much is Lovelace's dentistry practice. He still comes in every day, though he no longer works full time. "I never have retired. I've just slowed down," he said.
It could be that dentistry is in his blood. There are 10 dentists in his family, spanning four generations - from his uncle and cousins to his son, who has practiced with him since 1965, and his grandson.
Or it could be that Lovelace is never satisfied unless he's doing something. At 81, he's still vibrant. His friendly eyes sparkle through horn-rimmed glasses hooked on his wide ears, and he smiles energetically.
In addition to everything else he's done over the years, Lovelace also helped found the first independent bank in Bedford and, with Jennings, once proposed turning the Peaks of Otter into a ski slope to keep tourists coming to Bedford during the winter. (National Parks Service officials turned down the idea as too commercial.)
In 1988, a year after the death of his first wife, Mary Frances, Lovelace married Jane Boyd Moore. They're still happily married. "Some folks say we got married pretty quick, but at our age, there's not a whole lot of time left," he joked.
That might be true for a lot of people his age, but not Lovelace, his friends say. Viemeister, who's in his 60s, recalled that after Lovelace had a multiple bypass operation a couple years ago, the dentist was back within a year helping the Rotary Club by cleaning up roadside trash on Virginia 43.
"Here we are huffing and puffing, and Buck's bending over beside us, picking up trash like nothing happened," Viemeister said, laughing.
When Lovelace took the gavel as president at this month's Rotary meeting, he may have become the first Rotarian in the international volunteer service club's 91-year history with a 50-year gap between presidential terms.
Rotary today boasts 1.2 million members in 27,000 clubs worldwide, and records of individual club presidencies aren't complete, said a spokeswoman for Rotary International, but she believes Lovelace's accomplishment is "certainly unique."
Rotary's motto is "Service Above Self," and Lovelace has tried to life his life by that. One of his final goals as a Rotarian, he said, is to keep working for Rotary past the next milestone anniversary of the Bedford club, which was founded in 1924.
"I was there for the 25th anniversary and the 50th anniversary, and I hope to make it to the 75th anniversary, which will be in 1999."
If belief has anything to do with it, Lovelace will make it, his friends say. By now, they know: You can count on Buck.
LENGTH: Long : 120 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: DON PETERSEN Staffby CNBBedford dentist Buck Lovelace, 81, has been named Bedford Rotary
Club's president for the second time. color.