Stacey was born July 10, 1972 in Anapolis, Maryland to parents Lee and Nancy Vann. Her older siblings are brother Craig and Sister Sherri. She grew up helping with her family’s vegetable farm and enjoyed selling
them on a roadside stand. After graduating high school she held various jobs including Annapolis Naval Academy & NSA Federal Gov’t agency. She loved cars and could name any vehicle on the highway; but especially passionate about animals.

In fact she created her own high freq. range voice to speak to dogs including our companion of 10 years Winston, an English Setter, who actually says “Hello”. 

As her mother Nancy was a piano teacher she embraced music from the very beginning and loved dancing-and what a dancer she was.  She knew far more lyrics verbatim from 60’s, 70’s, and 80’s songs than I did, including my own songs.

She was every musicians dream. The most beautiful woman I’d ever seen….there in the audience singing along to my songs, written 20 years before she was born, what? 

And she loved rock guitar playing, and named a specific guitar tone and riff on a song on Ambrosia’s 1st album from 1975. How did she know it was my favorite too?  

Simply put, she was music’s greatest fan. And… she could sing! And I mean really sing, more on that later. 

We were married in Kauai in 2005 by Pastor Rick Bundschuh who would become a lifelong friend.  Then the miracle of giving birth to our only child, our mighty son Jackson changed our lives forever for the better. This also blessed my beloved daughters Beth & Kaitlyn from my first marriage with a brother!

Based in Redondo Beach I searched for a church our new little family without much luck. Then we read Rick Warren’s “Purpose Driven Life” — did 40 days of purpose, thanks to our friends Ken & Denise Vroom, and that Easter 2006 drove to Saddleback church where Pastor Rick told the history of starting a church for people who hate church!  We fell in love. He blew our minds, Then Worship music pastor co-founder Rick Muchow introduced himself and over many weeks persuaded us to join the church and move from Redondo Beach to Orange County.

And so we took the total leap of faith and moved!  

That was the best move of our lives especially because we sought to give Jackson a strong Christian foundation upon which to build his life, such as Proverbs 22 states: “Raise up a child the right way and when he’s old he won’t depart from it”.  

We spent almost a decade (2006-2015) spiritually maturing and serving Sadldleback. Stacey was baptized by Pastor Rick in 2006 and I finally got my priorities straight: I put my music career on the back burner.  Our small group led by Tim & Cheri Healy became our life line, and I even reconnected with my oldest friend Fred Beato who (imagine this) lived 2 miles down the road in OC.  God knows what He’s doing.  

When I got Cancer in 2009, Stacey was the one nursing me back to health with the greatest care and love I could ever hope to have. I could never have known it was a precursor to what would happen to her in late 2018. 

Part 2 coming soon 

Thanks for your patience ! 

David