Suzanne Stewart
Staff Writer
Ninety years. That’s how long Bob Vance, of Green Bank, has been alive. Well, technically, 90 years and four months. In those 90 years, Vance has seen a world of change in Pocahontas County – the growth of the Green Bank Observatory, the consolidation of three high schools into one and a landscape of ever-changing economies.
He grew up in Durbin and walked to Durbin Graded School where he climbed the more than 100 steps into the school each day.
In the first grade, he met Gladys Turner, whom he went on to court in the seventh grade.
“Her dad built a house in Arbovale, so in the eighth grade, I was at Durbin and she was going to Green Bank Grade School,” Vance said. “The next year, we were right back together.”
The pair dated as students at Green Bank High School and Vance got a job his junior year working for Red Kane, in Durbin.
“I worked with Red Kane, I was about sixteen years old and worked with him until college – they treated me like a king,” he said. “I worked two years for him. I traveled night and day with him when they were traveling somewhere. They were great to work with and I enjoyed it. If I needed something, I had somebody to go to.”
After graduating from Green Bank, Vance attended Potomac State College, where he lived with an aunt and uncle.
“They fixed me up a place to stay and gave me room and board,” he said. “All I had to do was walk up the hill and go to school. It didn’t cost me a thing.”
The cost savings didn’t stop there. Vance’s father worked for the railroad, she was able to catch the train in Keyser to come home to Durbin for visits – for free.
“My uncle would take me across the river to Cumberland, Maryland, to catch the train,” Vance said. “The train would come up through there and I would get on right outside of Keyser and ride into Elkins. Get to Elkins, have a two-and-a-half-hour layover, then the train left Elkins and went to Durbin.”
When it was time to go back to Keyser, he would either ride the train or his parents would drive him back.
After his first two years of school, Vance transferred to West Virginia University, and he graduated with a degree in mathematics and science.
He returned to Pocahontas County, where he married Turner, whose nickname was Bunny. He taught at Marlinton High School for one year and the couple lived in a mobile home near where the A&P store was located.
Coincidentally, Vance’s younger brother, Ken, was a student athlete at Green Bank High School the year he taught at Marlinton High School. Due to the rivalry between the two schools, it was hard for Vance to cheer for either side when they were pitted against each other.
“I just sat back and was quiet,” he said, laughing.
Bunny was a nurse and worked at Pocahontas Memorial Hospital when they lived in Marlinton.
After just one year of teaching, Vance began his military service with the U.S. Army and was stationed in California for a year and a half. Bunny and their mobile home joined him in the Golden State during his service.
“I finished teaching school two weeks before I went to service,” he said. “The Army moved my mobile home and paid for the move. They parked it on post where all I had to do was walk up to work.”
Vance served in the security agency as a first lieutenant and after his service was over, the Vances returned to Durbin, along with their mobile home.
Vance was offered a job at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory [now Green Bank Observatory], in Green Bank.
“The observatory packed up my mobile home, and they moved it back from the place it left from,” he said.
“We got it moved, no problem.”
Vance started as a telescope operator at the NRAO in 1961. Bunny worked as a nurse at the observatory’s doctor’s office.
Most of Vance’s work was done on the 85-foot telescope and the 300-foot telescope, until the latter collapsed on November 15, 1988.
“They called us that night when it fell,” he recalled. “We came in, looked at it – it was a mess.”
Amazingly enough, observation did not stall after the loss of the 300-foot. All the projects that were using the telescope at the time were transferred to either the 85-foot or 140-foot, which were prepared to continue surveying the night sky.
“We used both of them at the time to observe with,” Vance said. “They moved on to the 140-foot antenna. It was built and so we had an antenna ready to go. They kept on observing.”
From telescope operator, Vance moved on to be a programmer and worked with the astronomers to ensure the telescopes were pointed in the right direction for observation.
The astronomers would give Vance the coordinates and he would use punch cards to program the computers to set up the receivers.
“They would have stacks of those,” he said of the punch cards. “The computer would read them and move the antenna to whatever direction the astronomer wanted to record.”
In the late 1960s, Vance was a member of the Pocahontas County Board of Education at a very pivotal time in the county’s history. He and the fellow board members were facing a tough decision – to consolidate the three high schools – Green Bank, Marlinton and Hillsboro – into one.
“We decided to try to build a high school,” he said. “We spent a lot of time working on it. I don’t think we had any problem. We just talked about it with people. I think it’s still the best thing to happen to the county.”
After Pocahontas County High School opened, Bunny started the nurse’s aide program at the school. She taught there and also taught the first EMT course at the observatory’s fire department.
By the time Vance was ready to retire – 39 years later – the operation had become digital. He was there to see the Green Bank Telescope get built, but he never operated it – something he doesn’t regret.
“I didn’t even go near it,” he said. “I was ready to retire.”
Vance was content to leave the observatory behind and enjoy retirement with Bunny. The couple raised a garden, he would golf, do some woodworking, and they enjoyed life, visiting their two daughters, Roberta, in Morgantown, and Susan, in Keyser.
In 2013, Bunny passed away after a long illness.
Since then, Vance has divided his time between Green Bank and Morgantown, with Roberta, with whom he shares stories of the past.
He recalls life in Durbin with high regard and shares stories of how Durbin and surrounding towns were bustling places.
“I thought it was great when I was growing up – the theater, the motels, the railroad station – that’s where everything came into Durbin,” he said. “Just up the road, you could walk two miles and be at the leather tannery in Frank, which was another big place.
“Bartow, Frank and Durbin were all connected back in those days,” he continued. “There was a lumber company in Bartow. They had a sawmill. Randolph Bledsoe had his automobile dealership in Bartow.”
In addition to his career at the observatory and his four-year stint on the board of education, Vance is a lifetime member of the Moose Club and was very active in the Arbovale Community Center and the Arbovale Cemetery Association.
As he reflects on the past 90 years and all the experiences he has had, Vance admits, it’s been a wonderful life.
“It’s been an interesting world,” he said.
