Southeastern Oklahoma State University Athletics

BUD BAHNER without question hit a home run at Southeastern and that’s really hard to do when you play football.
 
The Ardmore, Okla., native earned All-District honors at Ardmore high School weighing about 160 pounds before muscling up to 195 on his six-foot frame when he played center and linebacker for coach Dave Stephens’ Savages.
 
Coach Stephens gave him a partial scholarship and a work-study arrangement that included janitorial duties at the ‘Pink Palace,’ and he would go on to star through the mid-1950’s, eventually earning first-team NAIA All-American honors in his senior year.
 
Bahner was just the second All-American recognized at Southeastern and was the last first team honoree until 1988.
 
Football heroics aside, Bud was most proud of the fact that he met and married Homecoming Queen Wanda Sue McNeely. They had been married 51 years at the time of his death and had three sons, eight grandchildren and now four great-grandchildren.
 
Southeastern had two sororities at the time and Bud was named Beau of Sigma Tau in 1955 and Beau of Pi Kappa in 1956.
 
Bahner graduated from Southeastern in May, they were married in June and left for Saskatchewan, Canada, where he had signed to play for the Roughriders in the Canadian Football League. His pro career lasted six weeks before a severe knee injury brought it to an end.
 
He would later graduate from Baylor University Dental School in 1969 and practiced dentistry in Ardmore until his death on September 29, 2007.
 
Bahner, through his efforts on and off the field, excelled to a level that brings great honor to Southeastern Oklahoma State University.  The University honors him today, August 18, 2018, with membership in the Southeastern Oklahoma State Athletics Hall of Fame.