W. Vaughan Spencer, 87, of Southmont, North Carolina and Key West, Florida, passed away Wednesday evening, July 29th, 2026 at home and in the arms of his wife of 27 years, Roberta Webb Spencer. A funeral requiem was held at Grace Episcopal Church in Lexington, N.C. The family received friends following the service at a reception in the Parish Hall.
Vaughan was born on October 11, 1938 in Anchorage, Kentucky to the late William Vaughan Spencer and Evelyn McGowin Spencer. Vaughan had strong, deep Alabama southern roots due to the influence of his maternal grandparents, uncles and cousins. The McGowin family, early into best practices for land conservation and forestry, owned one of the first steam engine operated lumber mills in Chapman, Alabama. As a young child, Vaughan fell in love with all things “lumber,” exploring the woods, the creeks, and spotting game that traveled the timberlands. With extended family nearby in Mobile and along the gulf, the ocean also became his lifelong wanderlust.
Vaughan attended preparatory school in Lawrenceville, New Jersey and during his high school years, he was a member of the ROTC. He met Judy Burns at Owl Creek Country Club on his holiday break from Yale. They married in 1959 while he was an undergraduate at Yale University. Vaughan graduated from Yale with a bachelor’s degree in psychology and a strong mix of mathematics. Following graduation, his daughter Eve was born in Louisville. The family relocated to Mannheim, Germany, where he served in the U.S. Army as 2nd Lieutenant, primarily tasked with deciphering code at the time the Berlin wall was built. His son Bill was born in Germany.
He returned to Louisville following his tour of duty and joined a brokerage firm at which he’d previously worked a summer job as a municipal bond underwriter. He later joined Stifel Nicolaus & Co, a St. Louis based regional brokerage company specializing in underwriting municipal bonds and refinancing existing bonds, saving municipalities millions in interest costs. Vaughan was named one of the top 20 stockbrokers in America by Registered Representative and subsequently recruited by George Ball, President of E.F. Hutton. His daughters Vicky and Judy were born during this phase of his career.
He later followed Mr. Ball to Prudential Securities and began investigating stock options in the over-the-counter market, where he saw the potential of covered call options. Because he was using hand calculators for his work, he went in search of a “mini-computer” and found one, about the size of a large office desk and weighing almost 400 pounds. He programmed the mammoth equipment to dial into the New York Stock Exchange’s analog phone system and compile detailed stock options for his clients’ portfolios. It was a game changer.
Vaughan also was engaged in numerous civic organizations, including serving on the Board of the Louisville Boat Club. He still loved the land so much that he purchased 362 acres in Irvington, Kentucky for hunting and farming. This farm later became his second home.
Often described as a “Renaissance Man,” Vaughan introduced his children to cattails, daylilies, dandelions, vegetable spaghetti, turnip greens, and kale, long before these became trendy dishes. He also taught them to waterski, windsurf, shoot, hunt, scuba dive, fish, catch lobsters, play ping-pong, make wine — and oh my — drive! He enjoyed playing backgammon, especially with Vicky, and watching UK basketball. He shared his love of boating with Judy, enabling her to host friends on many river outings. He divorced in 1986.
Vaughan later joined a small specialty firm, Churchill Financial, and began to wind down and “smell the roses.” He obtained his Captain’s license and commissioned the building of a 60’ custom motor yacht, the PUT AND CALL. He piloted his boat from Louisville to the Florida Keys each fall and then back in the spring. On one of his trips in 1994, he met Roberta Webb Faison while visiting Mike and Janice Murphy on a stop at Wrightsville Beach. He was smitten, but it was four years before she agreed to be his date over a long weekend at the Kentucky Derby. The rest is history.
While engaged, Vaughan and Roberta trained at his cousin’s FBO in Pensacola, FL and earned their pilot’s licenses. He purchased a Piper Cherokee Six, widely known as a “mini-van with wings”. Vaughan loved to tell friends he flew with a briefcase and all of “Berta’s stuff” up and down the eastern half of the US as she was still employed in Raleigh, NC representing the NC Community Action Association. They married in 1998 at the historic Episcopal chapel in Arlie Gardens in Wilmington, N.C., then bought and refurbished a home in Key West where they resided for 25 years.
Because his family expanded, Vaughan was able to mentor so many more loved ones, teaching them to fish and free dive in Key West and hunt the woodlands of his farm in Kentucky. He founded the W. Vaughan Spencer Foundation, which annually provides grants to non-profit entities that better the lives of children, families and handicapped individuals, as well as facilitate research to cure cancer and Alzheimer’s. Due to medical needs he moved to the Lexington, N.C. area near Roberta’s family in 2023.
He is survived by his wife Roberta Webb Spencer and his children with the late Judy Burns Spencer: Eve Spencer and her sons Ben Thornberry and Gavin Clark, Bill Spencer and his son Liam Spencer, Vicky Spencer Rouse and her daughter Aerial Spencer and Judy Spencer (Scott Knowles) and her daughter Lizzy Blade (fiancé George Chestnut) and step-sons Matt Knowles and Calvin Knowles. Additionally, two stepdaughters Stacy Ogburn (Kevin) and Christina Mayse (Andrew) and their daughters Taylor and Madison, stepson Bill Faison and his daughter Nora and her brothers, Cole Langlois and Owen Langlois, bonus son Tom Secore and bonus daughter Jennifer Herrington.
In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to the W. Vaughan Spencer Foundation, P.O. Box 470, Southmont, N.C. 27351 or Grace Church Irrevocable Trust Fund, 419 S Main St, Lexington, NC 27292.
Vaughan’s children hosted a reception to celebrate his life August 30 at Captain’s Quarters Riverside Grille, 5700 Captains Quarters Road in Prospect, Kentucky.
A Celebration of Life and stone Dedication will be held Sunday, November 22 at the farm, 1379 Edgar Basham Lane, Irvington, Kentucky from 3:30-7:30 PM.