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Jeff Rankin: Beloved veterinarian played Santa for decades
By Jeff Rankin
The Rankin File
Dr. Vird Odell Cudd had as many vocations as Forrest Gump, working as a circus performer, professor, veterinarian, would-be sheriff, philanthropist and elephant caretaker, but his favorite role by far was Santa Claus.
When the colorful longtime Monmouth resident died in 1964 at the age of 88, “Doc” Cudd was beloved by generations of local children for donning an increasingly threadbare red suit and jingling sleigh bells year after year, a tradition he began in 1897 at the age of 22.
Perhaps it was Cudd’s birth, a week before Christmas in a South Carolina snowstorm, that inspired his passion. It was “the worst snow and windstorm ever to hit that state,” he once quipped, “but the doctor still had to run 20 miles to catch me.”
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