Bud Budinger

1936 - 2020

He was the kind of a guy you'd want to be your friend or neighbor, or in the courtroom making it easy for a judge and jury to understand a complex building problem.
Always curious, Bud Budinger was an adventurous Dad to eight children letting them tryout many kinds of activities. With the addition of Jo Ann Bender's three children, whom he married at Riverbend in 1986, the total of his grandchildren is 29 and a few great grandchildren.
Bud usually dressed in cowboy boots and hat for Colville Airport board meetings or when he was on horseback with 60 other cowboys at the MCB ranch during their rides at Whidby Island.
He loved his small ranch, where he and his novelist wife Jo Ann Bender loved to host festive musical and other events. One summer he dressed in top hat and tails to park cars on his motorcycle for the high teas being held there. He'd put on fine gear to serve tea for the Northport Clinic annual ladies teas.
Born in Chicago on June 13, 1936, he graduated from the University of Arizona in physics and math.
He taught at a high school where he also coached the rifle team. He'd casually always add, "Behind my desk were the rifles and ammunition in an unlocked closet.
The great outdoors was more to his liking. He studied hard to be a soils engineer in California before setting off for Spokane to start his own company, Budinger & Associates.
Under his leadership, the company took an active role in downtown and regional building projects from dams to highways to schools, airports and environmental cleanups.
He served as president for several engineering associations, launched a high school bridge building contest, and flew his plane between the mountains to clients.
He flew the Comanche across the U.S. and Canada teaching soil compaction techniques to thousands of men and women in the construction industry.
He was like a proud father after he sold his company to three key employees and continued to work alongside them as an independent consultant as they took the firm to where it stands today as a leader among engineering firms.
When he could finally follow his dream, he worked each year on a mining claim in the Superstition Mountains near Apache Junction, Arizona, seeking lost Spanish gold while Jo Ann lay in a hammock writing a mystery novel. As Bud's time on earth ended at home suffering from pneumonia on May 5, he was still an active consulting engineer and publishing additional soils courses.
His family and friends can look forward to the time when they are allowed raise a glass to him.
He left life with a smile on his face, the author of the historical fiction Courage Beyond Expectations, a story of Native Americans, often a historical speaker at Rendezvous in the Park, and leaving happy memories of good times with the Frontier Regulars, neighbors, friends, spouse and family.
He attended St. Andrews Anglican Church in Trail, British Columbia, and was an active volunteer for Fire District 10, a member of Colville Rotary and a Colville Airport board member.