About Bruce
Bruce was many things to many people, but the role he most enjoyed was anything to do with family.
To Teresa (Ashbaugh) Lowe, whom he married in 1991, he was a soul mate and loving father to not only his own son, Brandon, but her two children.
To his parents, Wayne and Barbara (Love) Lowe of Westfield, N.C., he was a devoted son who planned to relocate to his hometown so he could better care for them in retirement.
To Ken Lowe, his only sibling, he was the younger brother who shared his love of golf and NASCAR racing, his loyalty to Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity and even the same April 7 birth date.
Bruce died Feb. 22, 2004, from heart failure, at the family's vacation home on Fripp Island, S.C.
"We had it all," said Teresa. "We asked each other on almost a daily basis why we were so blessed." They studied the book "Purpose Driven Life" to find the answer. "Bruce was afraid he was a materialistic person and it worried him," she said. "We talked a long time after we read the chapter about life on earth being just a visit and that material things don't matter. We were struck by the thought that we're not home yet - and that we will be better off when we reach our heavenly home."
Spiritual growth was important to Bruce and Teresa and they actively pursued it through their membership at the First Baptist Church of York, where he was a deacon, and had served on the staff and finance committees.
"Bruce was a big, friendly, wonderful fella," said Dr. Randy Gardner, church pastor. "He had an easy-going way of defusing tense situations but he could get to the heart of the matter pretty quickly. Things didn't upset him, he could handle a tense situation that way. But when it was time to move on and make a decision, he was there to do that, too."
Bruce and Teresa were involved in Sunday school, the Epiphany ministry for juvenile offenders and the Emmaus ministry for spiritual development. Once a month, the two would make the two-hour drive to Morganton, N.C., to spend several hours with the inmates at a prison for youth ages 14 to 21. And four times each year, the couple spent a three-day weekend with them.
"We developed a close relationship with the guys," Teresa said. "We'd pray with them, cry with them and at the end of the visit we'd form a hug line; everyone gets a hug and we tell them we love them. Once, a young man said it had been seven years since anyone had touched him. But we always felt we got more out of it than the prisoners."
His caring spirit extended to his 3M colleagues and clients, too.
Bruce was a senior sales executive at 3M Corporation and had recently received a 25-year service pin. "He was a very gifted and talented sales rep," said Bill Muenkel, 3M national sales manager. "He was very, very good with customer relations, and was always a team player who worked very effectively with his fellow 3Mers. He's somebody we will surely miss in a big way."
Big is a word that comes up a lot when anyone is talking about Bruce. Being 6'3", it's no surprise his nickname was Moose. But in the Lowe family, he was always the little brother with the perfect timing.
As the story goes, when Bruce was born in 1955 on his brother's fifth birthday, their parents told Ken the new baby was his birthday present. Later, Ken would turn his chores over to Bruce and say, "You have to do it because you're my birthday present."
"Bruce idolized Ken and knew he was lucky to have such a special family," Teresa said. "Once, when he heard someone talking about family problems he said he couldn't relate because he'd had such a perfect family life."
His family extended to the dozens of Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity brothers with whom he continued to stay in touch on a regular basis. "He loved his fraternity brothers like they were his own brothers and they loved him back," said Teresa. "One of them told me, 'There are two kinds of people - the ones who loved Bruce and the ones who hadn't met him yet.' "
And Bruce never forgot his first “extended family” – the loving community of Westfield, N.C. “He always considered Westfield his home,” said Rick Brannon, a friend since high school (Bruce was a 1973 graduate of East Surry High School). “He liked the community feel of a small, rural town.”
A modest man, Bruce admitted to playing football in high school but always insisted he wasn't very good. He graduated from North Carolina State in 1977 with a double major in speech and communication and was honored with awards in his sales profession, but he preferred to talk about his brother's achievements as founder of Home & Garden Television.
And Bruce was unabashedly proud of his son Brandon, who shares his middle name Allen.
At Bruce’s funeral service, family friend Rick Dees, who gave the eulogy, offered assurance to mourners. “The other night Bruce caught a glimpse of heaven,” he said, “and it took his breath away.”
As the final verse of “Amazing Grace” was sung, pallbearers Randy Castleberry, Mike Fulk, Rick Brannon, Stratton Story, Carroll Clark and Riley Hendrix prepared to take their friend to his final resting place.
Bruce was buried in the cemetery behind the First Baptist Church, just 200 yards from the home of his childhood.