William Jarvis Busby

William was born May 24, 1944 in Norfolk, Virginia to the late Max and Margaret Gilliam Jarvis Busby. He grew up in Salisbury, North Carolina, the first of five children. William, known as Bill and Billy to many, pursued his interests with a keen focus, carving his niche in the world the way he saw fit.

In junior high school, enamored and awestruck by the skill involved in launching oneself into the air with a long stick, Bill began a half century’s involvement with track and field by asking his parents for a truckload of sawdust to use as a pole vaulting pit. When they finally obliged, he hauled it in a wheelbarrow, load by load, to a field above his home where he taught himself to vault using a pole he cut from a neighbor’s bamboo forest. That passion would eventually lead to competing for the University of North Carolina Tar Heels and financing renovations of the indoor track.

Bill was a Mount Tabor High School volunteer track coach and benefactor from 1996-2006, as well as a volunteer coach of nine state championship indoor and outdoor teams from 2001 until 2004. Additionally, he financed and supervised the new Mount Tabor High School track facilities and automatic timing system.

Bill was a track and field official, coach, competitor, administrator and supporter. He received the Ed Barron Memorial Award through Southeastern Track and Field, Inc., was awarded the 1994 USATF National Administrator of the Year and was inducted into the Mount Tabor High School Athletic Hall of Fame on October 17, 2019.

Bill was responsible for financing the track at Thomasville High School, North Carolina. He competed in United States Masters Track and Field events across the country and sponsored a Masters Track and Field event annually in Thomasville, North Carolina. Bill was a certified official for track and field events at the high school and college level, for which he traveled across the country in order to officiate at events.

There wasn’t anything Bill did not know about track and field events and was a great resource on official track and field rules. He passed along his love of the sport to his children and grandchildren by building child-size hurdles from 2x4s and constructing a long jump sand pit in the backyard.

Aside from his love for track and field, Bill was an advocate for education and had a sense of humor. A cousin of Bill’s wrote, “I have always admired your tenacity and knowledge. I really didn’t like you when we would play Trivial Pursuit. You would walk into the room and give all the correct answers – and walk out with a smirk on your face!” She continued, “I have great memories of conversations during family reunions in Currituck, hearing ‘your life lessons’ with a twinkle in your eye. Sometimes I couldn’t figure out if you were just “BS” ing us!”

Bill always strived to be his best, and did so with no expectations of glory. Education was for the sake of learning things he wanted to know more about; when it came to physical tests, he measured himself against himself more than against others, always wanting to do better. He kept an ongoing list of the many thousands of books he had read and appreciated. Bill appreciated the small stuff: Hiking Duke Forest and New Hope Creek to see the wildflowers, watching foreign films with subtitles and traveling internationally. When traveling internationally, he would always discover places that were not on a tourist list for sights to see, but out of the way places that very few people had heard of or never heard of. He lived life on his own terms, eschewing complacency and materials things, preferring to build something himself rather than purchasing it at a store. Bill held some opinions at odds, compared to what is generally accepted. He was his own person.

Bill was a veteran of the US Army and graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Bill was a Morehead Scholar of which he had received not one, but two Morehead Scholarships, one for his undergrad and one for University of North Carolina Chapel Hill Medical School. He was the first medical school student to receive a Morehead Scholarship. Two Morehead Scholarships was extremely rare and unheard of. He was an intellectual and gifted orthopedic surgeon. He was inducted into Alpha Epsilon Delta International Premedical Honor Society in 1964 and Phi Beta Kappa in 1966.

After his orthopedic surgery residency, Bill started a solo practice in Thomasville, North Carolina. He was the only orthopedic surgeon in the community of Thomasville and surrounding Davidson County for over 30 years. His patients to this day remember him and his compassionate bedside manner and his gifted skills as an orthopedic surgeon.

William was preceded in death by his brother, Max Busby.

He is survived by his loving wife, Rose Luberts Busby; son, Ian Busby; daughters, Aimee (Matt) Hoyt, Leigh Busby (John Lautemann) and Blair Busby (Jeff Tiberii); step-son, James Zachman (Melissa Carroll); step-daughters, Melissa (Michael) Willman and Mollie Zachman; sister, Betty (Randy) Cox; brothers, Jim (Kathy) Busby and Charles (Joy) Busby; sister-in-law Kathy Busby (brother Max’s wife); four grandchildren, Flint Hoyt, James and Drew Lautemann, Emilio “Milo” Tiberii; three step-grandchildren, Wil Zachman, Brayden and Beckham Willman; and eight nieces and nephews.

A memorial service will be planned at a later date in 2021.

Memorials – Please consider giving your time, donations or both to something you believe in, as Bill would want you to find your own passions. He has given us all unique and priceless gifts: Training, advice, support, education and experiences. We ask that you honor his memory by doing the same.

Condolences may be sent to www.ApexFuneral.net