Welcome West Branch High School Alumni

Mary Anne Whitchurch Tuck
8110 Perry Road
Houghton Lake, Michigan 48629
989-422-5736
marianne55bd@gmail.com

Word was received on Thanksgiving week that the Ogemaw County Genealogical and Historical Society lost another member. Better known in the community as "Butch" passed away at his home in Hernando, Fla.

Florent (Butch) David was born to Byron and Damassie David on October of 1942. He leaves one sister, Margie, and her family as well as his aunt Janice Illig and his cousins. Butch graduated from West Branch High School with the class of 1960.

The OCGHS is proud that Butch was instrumental in converting the old garage at the museum into a display area featuring farming and some lumbering items. He furnished all the materials to line the walls of the garage with plywood. He meticulously labeled and all of the artifacts and spent the whole summer of 2017 on his pet project. The garage was opened to his work in the fall a year ago.

As a former member of the military and a proud Vietnam veteran, Butch was a tour guide for the school tours of the Military Room and wherever he was needed. Through his work, the items in the garage will always be reminders and a testament to the manner in which he was raised on the farm on Maes Road, the farm where he had more recently maintained a summer residence and was his parents' original farm operation.

Florent David was an accomplished skier and many friends recall his skiing began right at the former Ogemaw Hills Ski Park. At his 50th class reunion, he noted several of his experiences and accomplishments before before he retired with issues stemming from Agent Orange and his time in Vietma,/ . They are listed as follows:

1960-1964, Ski instructor in the winter and Michigan Highway Department in the summer.
1964, drafted in July, spent a year in Southeast Asia (Vietnam)
1966-1973, Ski instructor winters and Michigan Highway Department in the summer
1974, set up printing companies in Norwell, Mass; Toronto, Canada; Ft. Lauderdale, Fla, and Pleasanton, Calf.
1975, worked a season has a hunting guide and horse wrangler in Steamboat Springs, Col.
1976, began what became 32 years with Breckenridge, Ski Area, Col. 13 years as a ski school supervisor in winters and a life construction supervisor in the summers.
Winter of 1980-81, one of 23 Americans invited to travel to Austria and France to study new types of ski lifts.
Summer of 1981, lift project supervisor on the first detachable grip lift in the Western Hemisphere and the first "detachable grip quad" in the world.

Retired in August of 2008 and spent time hunting and working for a ranch in South Park, Col.

When Butch eventually returned to the West Branch area and the family homestead on Maes Road, he was welcomed back during the summer months while he maintained a warm climate residence in Hernando, Fla. He did a lot work around the farm and built a collection of artifacts and family history. He was generous with his donations of vintage items to the museum and OCGHS. His work will shine for a long time for all that he contributed.

Classmates and friends will recall his love of dancing. His focus was anything out of doors, including skiing, hunting, swimming, cars and motorcycles. He was a devout Vietnam vetran and often stated his pet peeve to be "people who put up a front."

He will be missed.

The family is planning a memorial service for Butch in the spring of 2019.

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