Leon Vance - Early Life and Family

Early Life and Family

Leon Robert Vance, Jr. was born and raised in Enid, Oklahoma. Vance attended Enid schools from first grade through high school. His father, Leon Robert Vance Sr., was a junior high school principal and also a civil aviation flight instructor, while his uncle had been an aviator in the Army Air Service who had been killed in France during World War I.

Vance was considered an above-average student and a great athlete. His father, as principal, thought of education as having great importance, and this spurred Vance, Jr. to challenge himself by taking difficult courses in high school. He averaged a 94 percent in mathematics.

Vance attended Oklahoma University for two years, becoming a member of Phi Delta Theta. After his sophomore year, Vance entered the United States Military Academy on July 1, 1935, as a member of the Class of 1939. A 1999 article in U.S. News and World Report called Vance and his West Point classmates the "Warrior Class" because they were destined to fight in World War II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War. In his First Class (senior) year, Vance was selected as a cadet sergeant in Company A of the Corps of Cadets. He graduated June 12, 1939, ranked 318th in order of general merit in a class of 456, and was commissioned as a second lieutenant of Infantry.

While training at Mitchel Field on Long Island, Vance met Garden City resident, Georgette Drury Brown. They married the day after his graduation from West Point and had a daughter, Sharon, born in 1942. Vance would later name his assigned aircraft The Sharon D. after his daughter.