Red maple will serve as a living tribute to Dave Buss, an Orillia businessman, community leader, and long-time golfer at Couchiching Golf Club<\/p>\n
A red maple tree will soon take root at Couchiching Golf Club in honour of a man whose presence on the course and in the community spanned decades.<\/p>\n
The memorial, expected to be planted today, will pay tribute to longtime Orillian Dave Buss, who passed away peacefully on March 10 at the age of 90.<\/p>\n
For organizer Jim Nichol, the gesture is deeply personal. Buss was more than a fellow golfer,\u00a0he was a neighbour and friend of more than half a century.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve known him for many years,” Nichol said. “We golfed together here for a long time, and he started the senior men\u2019s league here. In appreciation, I thought we should do something for him, and came up with the idea of buying a tree and planting it in his memory.\u201d<\/p>\n
The tree will be planted near the sixth hole, a location chosen with care. It was there that Buss once scored a hole-in-one, a memory still fondly shared by those who played alongside him.<\/p>\n
The red maple, selected simply because it was \u201ca nice looking tree,\u201d will be joined by a wooden memorial and engraved plaque. Buss’ family, Nichol noted, embraced the idea and contributed to the project.<\/p>\n
Born in Cooksville and raised in Lakeview, Buss carved out a full and varied life in Orillia. He operated several businesses, including the Joyland Beach General Store, Orillia Small Motors, and the Buss Fix-It Shop, proudly branded with the slogan \u201cFix Anything but a Broken Heart.\u201d<\/p>\n
He sharpened skates for generations of young hockey players and later drove ready-mix trucks for Sarjeants before retiring.<\/p>\n
But it was his community involvement that defined him as much as his business ventures. Buss coached bantam hockey, owned and operated the Junior B Travelways Hockey Club, and served as president of the Lions Club.<\/p>\n
At Couchiching Golf Club, where he was a member for more than 30 years, the senior men\u2019s league he founded is a fixture that continues to draw dozens of players every Wednesday.<\/p>\n
Nichol, who still plays in the league today,\u00a0said it has only grown stronger over time.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think we’ve had\u00a0up to 50 guys playing on a particular day this year,\u201d he said. \u201cWe play every Wednesday. We have a luncheon the last Wednesday of the month, and that\u2019s when they give out the prize money for the whole month. What makes the league special is just the camaraderie. It\u2019s a tough course, too.”<\/p>\n
Nichol recalled Buss as both a formidable competitor and a welcoming presence.<\/p>\n
\u201cDave was a very good golfer,\u201d he said. \u201cHe used to win regularly in the league, but no matter what he was always just happy to be out here.”<\/p>\n
Their friendship stretched far beyond the course. Nichol remembers meeting Buss shortly after moving to Harmon Road in 1967, and the two remained close for more than five decades. Even in Buss\u2019s final days, Nichol was there.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was with him pretty well into his last days,”\u00a0Nichol said. \u201cI volunteer four days a week at the hospital, and I would go up and see him every day to take him some cookies and stuff like that.\u201d<\/p>\n
For Nichol, the tree is a simple but lasting way to honour a man he describes as a pillar of the community.<\/p>\n
\u201cDave was a businessman in the community. He worked sharpening skates in the arenas for years and years. He had small motors that he was moving throughout the whole city,\u201d he said. \u201cHe was always happy. He was a community-minded guy.\u201d<\/p>\n
Nichol says\u00a0the red maple will stand as a living tribute to Buss,\u00a0a reminder of his hole-in-one, his laughter, and the countless friendships he forged at Couchiching Golf Club.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Red maple will serve as a living tribute to Dave Buss, an Orillia businessman, community leader, and long-time…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":178229,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[443],"tags":[49,48,90686,622,82],"class_list":["post-178228","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-couchiching-golf-clubdave-bussjim-nichol","tag-golf","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178228","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=178228"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178228\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/178229"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=178228"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=178228"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=178228"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}