By Peek Hames – Originally published in the 2013 Founder’s Review Magazine
In the winter of 1989, as Bud was firing up the groves, he knew he was witnessing the end of a dream. The temperature was below freezing and dropping, and the rain was turning to sleet and then ice. Even with 90,000 gallons of fuel to burn, his lifelong goal of staying in the citrus business was slipping away. The groves had frozen and been cut back after the freezes of 1983 and 1985, and now, for the third time in a decade, it was clear that this was not the charm. Fuel wasn’t six or eight cents a gallon anymore, and now he was just burning money. After this freeze, the trees would be sawed off at the stumps, and some land sold while other plots would be planted with pines. Since he was a boy, earning 25 cents an hour from his dad for hoeing weeds in the groves, all he ever wanted to do was be a citrus grower. He had been a good one, too, amassing three and a half times as much grove as his father had. But all the truckloads of charcoal, coke, and fuel oil over the last decade couldn’t stop Mother Nature. Soon, the ground would be slick with rotting oranges. The rats would eat the oranges, the owls would eat the rats, and Bud would move on.
Willet “Bud” Boyer, Jr. was born at Munroe Hospital in Ocala in 1940. He was brought home to Weirsdale, to the house he still lives in today, and joined an older sister, Ricky. Bud’s father came to the Lake Weir area in 1917 with his father, who had bought a five-acre grove off Hwy. 42. He met and married Edna Yongue, a local school teacher. Her family came to northwest Marion County in 1823, with ties to some of the old families in the area, including the Brooks, Gatrells, Woods, and DeVores.
Bud’s mother taught school at Gulf Hammock, Wakahoota, Ft. McCoy, Anthony, and Weirsdale. She lived in each community and taught school there until the tax money ran out, whether it was four, five, six months, or longer.
Bud’s dad acquired more groves, and along with his brother, Guy, they operated two packing houses—one in Weirsdale and the other in Lady Lake.
Education was paramount in the Boyer household from early on. Bud’s granddad had sent both his sons and two daughters to college. When Bud watched his citrus groves freeze for the last time, he was thankful for the values and education his family had instilled in him.
He attended school in Weirsdale from first through ninth grade and finished at the new Lake Weir High School at Sunset Harbor. Bud had been taught the value of saving money from working for his father in the groves and during summers on a farm they still had in Pennsylvania. He was able to pay his way through college, even though his family could afford it. “It only took $800 to $1,000 to go to college then, and we got clean sheets and towels every week,” Bud said. His father encouraged him to study something besides agriculture as a backup, so he took up industrial management and industrial engineering. A year after he graduated from U of F in 1963, his father died, and that winter, the groves froze. Bud was 22 years old.
In high school, Bud was the escort for a beautiful LWHS homecoming queen, Kaye Johnson, from Pedro. Kaye was also the first homecoming queen for CFCC in Ocala. Though Bud and Kaye never dated in high school, they began dating in 1963 and married in 1964. They have three sons, Willet III, Robert, and Jim, and seven grandchildren, all of whom live in the area.
During a reminiscing drive around South Marion and Lake County, Bud pointed out the first two orange groves he bought for $500 an acre off Rolling Acres Road in The Villages. He later sold them for a profit, “But nothing like the land there is going for now,” he said. His dad’s packing house in Lady Lake has long been gone, but you can still see the footprint where the office was in the center of town.
Bud still owns a beautiful six-acre Summerfield navel orange grove on the shore of Lake Weir, across the road from his house, which is protected from the cold winter winds. Standing on the bluff at the end of the grove offers a beautiful view of Lake Weir and its sandy white beach.
Bud has many memories of the citrus days around Weirsdale and readily recalls who owned the different groves. Taking his plywood boat and fishing on Lake Weir with his friend Sonny Scales was one of his fondest memories.
Bud became an Eagle Scout in 1955, and scouting has been a lifelong passion of his. Accepting that the citrus business wasn’t meant to be, he focused on helping boys learn and become accountable and productive citizens. The Weirsdale Troop 113 is one of the most respected troops in the country, with a clubhouse second to none. Bud has been involved with the scouts ever since college and has served as Scoutmaster for the last 25 years. The troop has produced 61 Eagle Scouts, 44 of whom earned the rank under Bud’s leadership. His three sons are all Eagle Scouts as well.
Though the path to his life’s goal changed, the values instilled by his parents—hard work, education, and productivity—remained constant. Bud has passed those values on to his sons and the young men who have learned scouting from him. The troop hosts an annual spaghetti dinner, feeding around 2,500 people and selling as many as 4,000 tickets. The money earned, along with funds from other projects, goes into a scholarship fund for the scouts.
Beyond his parents, several people made a difference in Bud’s life. One was Bernard Laugesen, who founded the Weirsdale troop in the early 1940s and served as Scoutmaster until Bud took over 25 years ago. Bernard was also his Sunday school teacher and Masonic instructor. Bud also remembers a math teacher, Miss Sue Yent, and former teacher and principal Leo Armstrong. Before graduating high school, Mr. Armstrong took the time to teach Bud and Sonny Scales a one-on-one class in college math to prepare them for what was to come. It worked because Bud graduated at the top of his class.
In addition to being active in his church, Weirsdale Presbyterian, scouting, and community events, Bud and Kaye have traveled to Europe several times. They have also been to Antarctica, Africa, Australia, New Zealand, and Nome, Alaska, and have watched the polar bears at Hudson Bay.
