Obituary – Dudley Bryan Hare

Published 4:19 pm Friday, November 17, 2023

Dudley Bryan Hare, age 85, born Sept. 10, 1938, to Henry Dudley and Clara Godwin Hare in Selma, passed away Nov. 15 in Athens, Georgia.  

Bryan grew up in the small Alabama community of Braggs, attending a two-room schoolhouse. He attended Hayneville High School, graduating as the salutatorian of a class of sixteen students in 1956. The first member of his family to attend college, he attended Alabama Polytechnic Institute, graduating in 1960 in the first class of the redesignated Auburn University. There he participated in compulsory swim lessons, served as junior usher at Auburn’s First Christian Church, majored in business administration and always managed–as he told the story–to have ROTC drills at noon every day.  

He and his late wife Geraldine Summerlin Hare made their home in Selma and Montgomery until her death in 1977. They raised their children, Susan and Richard, at Forest Park Baptist Church, where Bryan served as a deacon and Sunday School teacher. A lifelong public servant, he worked for the Alabama State Department of Industrial Relations for 36 years. Upon retirement, he was a longtime board member of the Industrial Relations Credit Union (now the Guardian Credit Union).  In 1981, he married Betty Bargainer Stabler. Her two sons, Bill and Chris, doubled their family and–with the addition of eight grandchildren (plus great-grandchildren) they were the world’s best Paw-paw and Nanny! 

Bryan was a man of integrity and a rock of stability who reflected all of the love poured into him all the way back to his childhood. Most recently, he was a member of Davenport Church of Christ in Highland Home, AL. Bryan was diagnosed with Alzheimers in 2021 and resided at Wesley Gardens in Montgomery, AL and recently moved to Presbyterian Village in Athens, GA.  The family would like to thank the staff of Wesley Gardens and Presbyterian Village for their care.  Bryan’s family is grateful for a husband, father, grandfather, and great grandfather that modeled the love of Christ and poured out Christ’s love on his family and community. 

Funeral services will be held Nov. 19 at Leak Memory Chapel in Montgomery.  Visitation with the family is at 1 pm with the funeral following at 2:00 pm.  Rev. Dr. Edward Bolen, Bryan’s son-in-law, and Rev. Jack Cates will officiate.  Interment will be at Clay County Memory Gardens in Ashland, AL on Monday, November 20, 2023.  Bryan was preceded in death by his parents and his first wife, Geraldine Summerlin Hare.    He is survived by his wife of 41 years, Betty Stabler Hare, his children Susan Hare Bolen (Edward) and Richard Bryan Hare (Charlotte), his stepsons Bill Stabler, and Chris Stabler (Betty), and his grandchildren John (Brianna) Bolen, Zoë (Preston Heyward) Bolen, Catherine Hare, Margaret Hare, Thomas (Allison) Stabler, Renae (Matthew) Renahan, Rachel (Lester) Clements, Andrew Stabler, and eleven great grandchildren.  He is also survived by his sisters-in-law, June Summerlin Reed and Barbara Summerlin and several nieces and nephews.  

Pallbearers will be his grandsons, Thomas Stabler, John Bolen, Andrew Stabler, Lester Clements, Matthew Renehan, and Preston Heyward.  Please make donations to Methodist Homes of Alabama and Northwest Florida, Attn: “Wesley Gardens Fountain of Love Fund,” 1520 Cooper Hill Road, Birmingham, 35210 or www.methodisthomes.org.