'Y.D.' Hance; First Secretary Of Agriculture In Maryland

Source from:  By Patricia Sullivan Washington Post Staff Writer Sunday, February 19, 2006 02/20/2006

Young Duke "Y.D." Hance, 85, a Calvert County tobacco farmer who became Maryland's first secretary of agriculture, died of septic shock Feb. 4 at Calvert Memorial Hospital. He was appointed by Gov. Marvin Mandel in December 1972 after a feud within the farming world about whether the secretary should come from the dairy, crop-raising or educational fields. Mr. Hance was a tobacco farmer who also raised feeder cattle. During his six years in office, Mr. Hance accused the Environmental Protection Agency of using scare tactics in its warnings about the dangers in the use of agricultural chemicals. At a Maryland Tobacco Growers Association meeting in 1977, Mr. Hance, who said he was a smoker, argued that Americans should be grateful for the tax revenue that tobacco sales generated. He told a reporter, "You know, they want to kill smoking and chewing tobacco and make marijuana legal." Mr. Hance was born in Prince Frederick and educated in Calvert County public schools. He graduated from Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pa., and enlisted in the Army. He was assigned to the old Central Intelligence Corp. and sent to Officer Candidate School in Australia. He then served in New Guinea until 1945. He returned to his family's farm, Taney Place, and while operating it became active in the Farm Bureau and other agricultural organizations. He was chairman of the board of supervisors for Calvert Soil Conservation and president of the Calvert County Farm Bureau. He was president of the Maryland Farm Bureau in 1965 and chairman of the Maryland Agriculture Commission from 1969 to 1972. During that time, he also served on the board of National Insurance Co. He resigned his seat when he took public office. Mr. Hance returned to his farm in 1978 but continued to serve in other positions, including on the University of Maryland's Board of Regents. He helped develop the Maryland Agricultural Land Preservation Program and was a director on the Southern States Cooperative's board in Richmond from 1984 to 1996. Mr. Hance was a past chairman of the Calvert County Board of Appeals. He was a member of the American Legion, Veterans of Foreign Wars, Disabled American Veterans and Beta Theta Pi fraternity. He attended St. Paul's Episcopal Church in Prince Frederick. He was inducted into the Maryland Agriculture Hall of Fame when it opened in 1991. In 1989, he was interviewed on the front porch of his house. The family's 290-acre farm near Barstow, along the Patuxent River, has been in his family since the 18th century, and Mr. Hance said he thought the county had been ruined by development. "I'd like to be able to drive 25 or 30 miles without seeing a cluster of houses," he said. "There ought to be some point in time when we say, 'This is it! No room for more population!' " His wife, Lonnie Schuler Hance, died in 1997. Survivors include three daughters, Betsey Holtzmuller of Eaton, Ohio, Helen Landers of Gaithersburg and Susan Hance-Wells of Prince Frederick, who operates the family farm; and nine grandchildren. Enditem