Randall Bond passed away suddenly at his home in Beulah on Friday, February 24, 2023. His family have requested that in lieu of flowers, please consider a gift to the Frankfort Area Community Land Trust. 

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Randy was born in Grand Rapids to Robert and Hazel (Farr). Randy married his wife, Kay (Buech), in 1968 and began their eventful and happy life together. Early in their marriage, they struck out for Valdez, Alaska, traveling the Alcan highway while pregnant with their son, Curtis. Randy worked as a surveyor and Kay as a local magistrate. They returned to Michigan in 1975.

 

While many wish to live differently, Randy was highly intentional in making that happen, in partnership with Kay. He was animated by a vision of a simpler life, deeply motivated by peace and justice, and always characterized by his wry and singular sense of humor. He designed and, with the help of family and friends, built an off-the-grid house in Benzie County that they moved to in 1998. Visiting them, one could only be struck by the warmth and comfort of their home (despite the spotty internet service). Randy was an organic gardener before the term was in wide use—he joked that he and Kay lived not on the cutting edge, but the bleeding edge, of various causes. They were part of numerous humanitarian and peace-keeping missions over decades, to multiple Central American countries and to the former Yugoslavia during its civil war. Randy also made six trips related to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In 1997, he was part of an initiative to deliver medicines to Iraqi children’s hospitals, at a time when those that did so faced both fines and imprisonment.

 

Closer to home, in recent years Randy and Kay worked actively with local groups interested in sustainable living. Randy also indulged in prodigious reading, along with gardening, and a fruitless catch and release program with local chipmunks. He countered the effects of aging in his typical fashion. Seeing him in the yoga position called child’s pose, Kay asked who he was praying to, and he replied, “anyone who will listen.” Randy feared for the state of the environment and for society, and wished he could have done more, but those who knew him are grateful that he and Kay engaged with the world as they did.

 

Randy was preceded in death by his parents and his sister, Sharon. He is survived by Kay and their son, Curtis, of San Francisco, and his brother, Doug (Janice) of Edwardsburg. Please visit the Life Story Funeral Home website (https://lifestorytc.com) to share your thoughts and more. Services to honor Randy and share memories, followed by a meal, will be held at Grow Benzie, located at 5885 Frankfort Highway, Benzonia, from noon to 4:00 p.m., Saturday, March 4.