(Information taken from 50th Alumni Booklet May 2007.  Please send an e-mail to update information at any time.)

Spouse: Teri

Children:  Shannon, Shaun, Lee & Step-daughter, Heather Shelly

Grandchildren: 11

     When Butch graduated from Decatur and started to Dana College, he found out you had to study and it wasn't all sports.

     He joined the Army and was sent to Vietnam as a helicopter gunner.

     After coming home he went to Cheyenne and started his masonry career.  He married a girl from Savannah, GA., and moved there to start his own masonry construction business.  They had two children and later divorced and he moved to Bluffton, South Carolina.  He was one of the first masonry contractors on Hilton Head Island.  There he married Teri and they had a boy.

     He came down with rheumatoid arthritis at the age of 29.  He continued to work without complaining until he died on February 23, 2003

     He never forgot all his friends in Decatur.  He loved "Big Red" and had a Bulldog all his life.  He even had a bulldog engraved on his burial coffin.  He is buried in Buford, South Carolina in a military cemetery.

(Written by Elaine Epling Deman)

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Sept 20, 1939 - February 23, 2003

Bernard Lee "Butch" Epling, 63, died February 23, 2003, at his home in Bluffton, SC, following a long illness. Services will be 11 a.m. Thursday, February 27, at Sauls Funeral Home Chapel in Bluffton.  Burial will be in Beaufort National Cemetery, Beaufort, SC.

He was born September 20, 1939, in Anoka, MN, the son of Arthur and Helen (Cooper) Epling.

He was a brick mason and owner of Epling Masonry, Inc.  He began building on Hilton Head in 1969.

Epling was a door gunner on a Huey-Cobra helicopter during the Vietnam War.

Memberships included Bluffton United Methodist Church and Bluffton Men's Club.  He was active in community service and enjoyed fishing and football.

Surviving are his wife, Vallie Theresa "Teri" Epling of Bluffton; sons and daughter-in-law, Shaun and Misty Epling and J. Lee Epling, all of Bluffton; daughters and sons-in-law, Shannon and Vince Loper and Shelly and Pat Van Horn, all of Bluffton, and Heather and Joseph Arzillo of Hardeeville, SC; nine grandchildren; brother and sister-in-law, Wesley "Bud" and Lila Epling of Waterloo, Iowa; and sister and brother-in-law, Elaine and Les Deman of Elk River, MN.

Memorials may be directed to Arthritis Foundation of Hilton Head, PO Box 21312, Hilton Head, SC 29925 or Trinity Lutheran Church, c/o Larry French, PO box 504, Decatur, NE 68020