Earle Dar­wood Ran­dall, age 94, of Bar­ton died peace­fully in his home on May 31, 2022, af­ter a brief ill­ness.

He was pre­de­ceased by his par­ents George and Lenna (Roberts) Ran­dall, his fos­ter par­ents Gor­don  and Mil­dred (Clark) Baker, his wife of 54 years, Wanda June (Sloane), his only son, Glen Ran­dall, his broth­ers Ste­vie and Neil Ran­dall, and his step­mother Eva Perkins Ran­dall.

He is sur­vived by his brother Stu­art and part­ner, Mary Phin­ney, by three re­main­ing chil­dren, daugh­ter Su­san Ran­dall and her spouse, Linda Sch­neck, of Bar­ton, daugh­ter Lenna (Ran­dall) Noth of St. Al­bans, daugh­ter Gail (Ran­dall) Hay­den and her hus­band, Eu­gene (Skip) Hay­den, of West­more, and his daugh­ter-in-law Kay Ran­dall of Bar­ton.  Earle is also sur­vived by 11 grand­chil­dren:  Av­ery, Shanna, Devin, Lind­say, Bradley, Dustin, Veron­ica, Clark, Kye, Axle, and Mer­lin, and six great-grand­chil­dren:   Sophia, Cas­sidy, Braylen, Kellen, Jace, and Everett.

Earle was a true Ver­mon­ter in every sense of the word.  Born and raised in Bar­ton and a res­i­dent of Bar­ton for all but seven years of his life, Earle was hon­est, straight-for­ward, hard­work­ing, very witty (the typ­i­cal dry sense of hu­mor Ver­mon­ters are fa­mous for) and al­ways ready to help any­one in need.  His fam­ily was every­thing to him.  He was a great dad and an amaz­ing Papa!  He loved the out­doors, par­tic­u­larly cut­ting wood, sug­ar­ing, ski­ing, snow­mo­bil­ing, and gar­den­ing.  He also loved sports and his­tory. The Civil War era was a fa­vorite sub­ject.  His love of his­tory led him to join the Crys­tal Lake His­tor­i­cal So­ci­ety where he served as pres­i­dent for many years.  He and his friend, Richard Douse, made a video about the his­tory of Bar­ton, which Earle nar­rated. Earle could speak about the his­tory of Bar­ton in great depth.

Earle at­tended Bar­ton Acad­emy and grad­u­ated from the school in 1946.  He was very ath­letic and let­tered in mul­ti­ple sports, bas­ket­ball and base­ball be­ing his fa­vorites, as well as par­tic­i­pated in stu­dent coun­cil and the Cit­i­zen­ship Club.  Earle helped his fos­ter par­ents, Mil­dred and Gor­don Baker, who loved and raised him as their own, run their dairy farm. Af­ter high school he at­tended the Uni­ver­sity of Ver­mont (UVM) earn­ing a Bach­e­lor of Arts in ed­u­ca­tion grad­u­at­ing in 1950.

He and Wanda mar­ried on Sep­tem­ber 3, 1949.  Wanda had a sec­re­tar­ial de­gree from Becker Ju­nior Col­lege in Worces­ter, Mass­a­chu­setts, and sup­ported them both work­ing as a med­ical tran­scrip­tion­ist at Mary Fletcher Hos­pi­tal in Burling­ton while Earle fin­ished his de­gree.  Earle con­tin­ued his ath­letic ca­reer at UVM par­tic­i­pat­ing in cross coun­try and track.  He ex­celled in both and in fact broke a long-stand­ing record in the mile that had been held by his UVM track coach for sev­eral years.  His name and record were posted in UVM's Gut­ter­son Field House for many years.

Af­ter grad­u­a­tion, Earle be­gan his teach­ing ca­reer at the Si­monds School in Warner, New Hamp­shire, where he taught bi­ol­ogy and shop for seven years be­fore chang­ing ca­reers.  His stu­dents at Si­monds loved him and many came to visit him through­out the years.  Sev­eral came to both his 80 and 85 birth­day cel­e­bra­tions.  While in New Hamp­shire he made friend­ships that lasted a life­time. Moe and He­len Chapin and Dick and Phyl­lis Bai­ley were spe­cial friends of Earle and Wanda.

As chil­dren ar­rived the good times con­tin­ued.  The adults and kids all looked for­ward to vis­it­ing with each other as of­ten as pos­si­ble.  The adults were called aunt and un­cle and the kids con­sid­ered each other cousins.  For the next 17 years Earle worked as a tech­ni­cian for the New Hamp­shire-Ver­mont Ar­ti­fi­cial In­sem­i­na­tion Cor­po­ra­tion which was even­tu­ally bought out by East­ern Ar­ti­fi­cial In­sem­i­na­tion Cor­po­ra­tion.  He moved the fam­ily back to Bar­ton.  Earle was pro­moted to area man­ager while with East­ern and trav­eled ex­ten­sively through­out Ver­mont, New Hamp­shire, and north­ern New York.

Af­ter 17 years he wanted to spend less time on the road and more time with his fam­ily, so he left East­ern, and in the fall of 1973, took a teach­ing po­si­tion at Lake Re­gion Union High School where he taught vo­ca­tional agri­cul­ture and headed the FFA (Fu­ture Farm­ers of Amer­ica) pro­gram.  He coached sev­eral award win­ning FFA teams in dairy, poul­try, and par­lia­men­tary pro­ce­dure, go­ing sev­eral times to the na­tion­als which at that time were held in Kansas City, Mis­souri.

Af­ter 17 years he re­tired from teach­ing in June of 1990.

Earle seemed to have bound­less en­ergy.  He loved phys­i­cal ac­tiv­ity.  For ex­am­ple, while teach­ing full time he spent his spare time cut­ting wood for him­self, fam­ily, and friends as well as for the fam­ily-owned, wood burn­ing arch at the sugar house that he and his fos­ter fa­ther built when he was 12.  He raised beef cows, planted and tended a large veg­etable gar­den and a very large potato patch.  He men­tored many a novice sug­ar­maker and loved to tell peo­ple about the process of mak­ing maple syrup.  Sug­ar­mak­ing was a shared ef­fort by fam­ily and friends that in­cluded Tyler and Marie Bean, the Cooper fam­ily, Jane Green­wood, and Ruth Gjess­ing.  Those friend­ships lasted a life­time.  He brought his grand­kids with him to the woods while he cut wood where they learned about chain­saw safety, woods safety in gen­eral, na­ture, and a few swear words.

Earle re­mained very ac­tive in all these en­deav­ors un­til about his nineti­eth year.  He then ex­pe­ri­enced some health is­sues that slowed him down but did­n't fully stop him from get­ting about.  His deep­est de­sire was to be able to live and die in his own home.  This was made pos­si­ble by his daugh­ter Su­san and her spouse, Linda, who lived with him and lov­ingly cared for him dur­ing his de­clin­ing years.  Once he slowed down, his daugh­ter Gail would of­ten take him on rides to see fam­ily or friends or just to see the beau­ti­ful scenery that is around every cor­ner of Ver­mont roads.  They would stop and eat at lit­tle din­ers or snack bars.  Earle re­ally en­joyed those jaunts and looked for­ward to those trips with Gail.

Per Ear­le's wishes he will be cre­mated and there will not be a view­ing.  There will be a grave­side ser­vice of­fi­ci­ated by Joan Vin­cent at the Nye Ceme­tery on Maple Lane Road in Bar­ton, on July 24, at 11 a.m. and a cel­e­bra­tion of his life to fol­low im­me­di­ately af­ter at his home at 536 Breezy Hill Road, Bar­ton.  All are in­vited to at­tend one or both func­tions.