It was a scene Bud Runion would have loved.
Along the side of the Mayes Ward-Dobbins Funeral Home in Marietta, the owners of more than two-dozen vintage cars gathered to pay a final tribute to one of their own.
There were Thunderbirds and Chevys, a Model A with an exposed engine and a few Porsches. Mercedes and yes, the car Bud Runion was hoping to acquire when he was shot to death last week: a red Ford Mustang.
The owners of those cars, who belong to a group called ROMEO — Retired Old Men Eating Out — were there on this blustery Monday to help escort the bodies of Runion, 69, and his wife June, 66, to Georgia National Cemetery in Canton, about 25 miles away.
“This was important, because he was one of us,” said ROMEO Bob Hunt, before the processional began. “It is important that we show our respect. We would be here if it were pouring down raining.”
Dik Wesson, another member of the club, interjected, “And he’d be here for you.”
The Runions were killed last week in Telfair County while on a run to look at buying a red ‘66 Mustang.
Bud Runion had wanted one for what seems like forever.
“He had a 1966 Ford F-100 Pickup,” said Wesson, who owns a foam green 1940 Ford Coupe. “But he really wanted that ’66 Mustang.”
‘Everybody loved Bud’
Every Tuesday morning ROMEO meets for breakfast at the Marietta Diner. Wesson said up to 100 can show up on a given Tuesday to eat and pack the parking lot with their shiny old cars. More than 700 are on the mailing list.
“We gather at 8 a.m., have breakfast, then go stand around the parking lot and look at our cars,” Wesson said. “Then everyone goes home. Bud was an integral part of that. Everybody loved Bud.”
While the Runions’ burial was Monday, hundreds of people, including about 50 members of ROMEO, packed into Mt. Paran North Church of God on Saturday for the couple’s funeral.
“We wanted to show respect for the family,” said Bob Frazier, who owns a blue 1940 Ford.
Monday marked a week since the bodies of the Runions were found in a wooded area in rural Telfair County, about 200 miles south of Atlanta. The Runions had traveled to Telfair in hopes of buying a red Mustang that, it turned out, did not exist.
Bud Runion had connected with 28-year-old Jay Towns through Craigslist, authorities say. They said Towns lured the Runions to South Georgia with the intent of robbing them. Each was shot in the head and their bodies were placed along an isolated dirt road.
‘It took me 40 years’
The quest.
All of the ROMEOS know it.
“For some people, getting that car they really want is really important to them,” Frazier said. “It is like something they have wanted since childhood.”
Leaning on his ivory-colored 1941 Hudson, Hunt said the chase is always at the forefront of his mind.
“It took me 40 years to find a 1930 Hudson that I could afford,” Hunt said. That Hudson is in his garage, where it will take him two years to fully restore it. “But I have been all over looking for one. I went to see one in Oklahoma City. I went to Gettysburg. I have been to Louisville. That is what Bud was doing.”
A few minutes before the processional was to start, Hunt walked over to start his prized Hudson. Just then, he remembered something he wanted to show a visitor. He reached in his breast pocket and pulled out a copy of an email.
It was a lead on another Hudson for sale.
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