David Vance Youmans

Dr. David Vance Youmans, 85, a thirteen-year resident of Pulaski, TN, passed away on
September 23, 2020. He was much loved and is now missed by all who knew him.

Born late to aging pioneer parents, Thomas W. and Floy Caldwell Youmans, David was born on
the North Dakota prairie on April 1, 1935. Seven years of bad harvests, a dust bowl, and the
Depression compelled his family to migrate by horse and wagon to the hills of northern Idaho in
1937. It was in the Idaho hills where David grew up and entered into an international career
while yet in high school. He served as an international foreign youth exchange to Colombia,
South America, in the early 1950s, and began studies for his first two bachelor's degrees in
agriculture (University of Idaho) and foreign trade (Thunderbird) with an international focus.
David first began his international work as a professional in 1960 as a tech rep with Rohm &
Haas, a position which landed him again in South America where he met his wife Julia Correa.
Throughout the 1960s, David diversified his internationalism while serving as a Peace Corps
volunteer and then as a supervisor in Colombia, a deputy area director for CARE in Egypt and
Gaza, and a staff development specialist with Potlatch Corporation on the tropical Pacific Coast
of Colombia. This trend continued when he became country director for Plan International in
Colombia, Brazil, and Bolivia, appointments which occupied most of the 1970s.

After two decades of offshore living and working, he met the challenge of his desire to repatriate
to the US and obtained a faculty appointment with Washington State University (WSU) as a
county, then area extension agent in the Hispanic, Native and agricultural communities of Central
Washington State. Not long into this appointment, his university recognized his international
expertise and appointed him chief of party for the Lesotho Farming Systems project in Africa and
the Jordan Valley Agricultural Science project in the Middle East, two long-term appointments
that occupied most of a decade. He was on assignment in Lesotho when he completed his
doctoral degree in extension education at the University of the Orange Free State in the Republic
of South Africa. He was also advanced to full professor on that same assignment.
Returning to Washington in 1988, he continued his international work with WSU as the
extension specialist responsible for the international marketing and production of Washington
State agricultural commodities and trade-short-term projects that increased the flow of
agricultural products to markets in many countries on all continents. His leadership and
mentoring roles served the world well. In 1995, he was named to the University of Idaho's Hall
of Fame for innovation in developing international extension programs throughout the world.
David retired in 2005 after a half-century of international work in all corners of the world. A few
years on the Gulf Coast of Florida prompted him, together with his wife Julia, to relocate to
Middle Tennessee in 2007, where he spent the last thirteen years of his life. His was a life
well-spent, during which tens of thousands of people benefited greatly from his wisdom, his
vision, and his direction.

David was predeceased by his parents and all of his siblings, and he is
survived by his wife of 58 years, Julia Correa Youmans, his three sons, Ricardo, Sergio, and
Vance, 14 grandchildren, and 16 great grandchildren.

Williams Funeral Home & Crematory of Columbia, TN, is in charge of arrangements.

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/215987194/david-vance-youmans