AMERICAN ANGUS ASSOCIATION - THE BUSINESS BREED

Winning the Lottery

Bruce Buntin retires from Angus Media after 33 years.

By Megan Silveira, Angus Journal Managing Editor

December 23, 2024

The swivel chair is vacant, and the wall blank. Where Bruce Buntin has sat the last 11 years as a part of the Angus Media web department is now an empty cubicle. When Buntin retired this past September, he took with him a type of consistency that’s been missed ever since. 

“Every day at about 10 o’clock … he’d get a couple of sneezes,” jokes Andy Blumer, web services team lead. 

Lauren Hitch had her own routine with Buntin. Each morning, the web services designer was greeted with a “What’s up?” The simple question was one of the many ways Buntin made her feel seen at the office. 

Though she was always eager to get her hands on the tomatoes from Buntin’s garden, Hitch says she didn’t need to be bribed to enjoy time with her co-worker. 

“Bruce is generally calm and unbothered, but also a lot of fun,” she explains. “He’s a wealth of dad jokes and funny stories about his family and past experiences.” 

Beyond the joy he brought to the office, he kept things light. Internet memes were constantly printed and tacked up next to Buntin’s computer screen. Blumer says Buntin was a trusted friend, too. Before Blumer joined Angus Media, his father had also worked alongside Buntin. 

“Something we did early on when I first started here was we’d go out and we’d take a walk up the street. I don’t know why, but that was always something that cleared my head a little bit,” Blumer says. “For that 15 minutes that we walk up the street and back, we’re talking about everything — that’s life. That’s not work. Those were really important moments for me, especially after my dad died. That just felt like this is somebody I can connect with who knew my dad.”

Blumer says Buntin is the type of person who would do anything for anyone. In and out of the office, the word dependable comes to mind. 

“Bruce was always reliable,” Hitch echoes. “If anything needed taken care of, you could rely on him to make sure it got done quickly and efficiently.”

One in a million 

When he was hired in April 1991, Buntin was working evenings, laying out ads. Looking back, Buntin’s thankful Cheryl Oxley brought him on. He’d been laid off from another job, and the opportunity to work at Angus Media was priceless. 

“I was looking out to feed my family, and she gave me an opportunity to make some money,” Buntin explains. 

As the years progressed, Buntin worked his way up the ladder. From paste up work and laying out co-op ads to computer maintenance work and film processing, his roles grew as the technology did. 

“It was just kind of a natural progression of things,” Buntin remembers. “We tried to stay current with the technology as best we could, and it was pretty smooth.” 

Despite his innate knack for all things digital, Buntin didn’t come from a background in the technology world. He found computers and their workings interesting, and did a lot of personal research to better understand how they ran.

His upbringing wasn’t tied directly to the cattle industry, either, but he says working alongside cattlemen was an added bonus to the job. 
“I think most all the people that I ever ran across were terrific people,” Buntin explains. 

While saying goodbye to those people was hard, Buntin is already enjoying retirement. He and his wife, Linda, are keeping plans simple: repainting a bathroom and planning a few trips to Arkansas. 

As he reflects on his Angus career, he says there’s a lot to smile about. From memories to friends, Buntin might have won the lottery — or at least the one that counts the most. 

“When I first started, Terry Cotton told me that I would never get rich working there,” Buntin laughs. “I say now that it was a very rich experience, but I didn’t get wealthy.”  

September 2024 Angus Journal Cover

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