Gary Lee Buckingham was born in Sunbury, Ohio on May 28, 1946. After graduating from Big Walnut High School, Gary earned his Bachelor’s degree at Ohio State and shortly thereafter joined the Army as First Lieutenant through the ROTC program. As fate would have it, he fell in love with a Dutch girl named Elsje while he was stationed with the Army in Germany and Holland. They were married and had two sons, Tony and Nik.

Gary chose to pursue a career in business management, and earned his master’s degree at the Thunderbird School of Management in Glendale, Arizona, after which he was hired by AIG in New York, and was fortunate to be able to move the family back to Holland where AIG had an office. This was to be the beginning of a successful career which took the family to such diverse places as Rio de Janeiro, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur and Nairobi.

While the experience of an international career was rewarding, the prospect of finding a new golf course to conquer was invariably a factor in the decision to move to a new city. His passion for golf was only rivaled by his love of college football and his alma mater’s Ohio State Buckeyes. An operation to remove a cancerous tumor from his brain took away his ability to walk the links and, to him, was probably the cruelest side effect of a battle with cancer which he fought courageously for the next fourteen years, until he passed away on Aug. 2, 2010.

He is survived by his ever-loving wife, Elsje, his sons, Nik and Tony, and his grandchildren Johnathan and William. As he leaves this earth, a new member of the family will arrive in December as an expectant Nik and Elisabeth look forward to the arrival of a baby girl.

A Memorial service was held at 4 p.m. on Tuesday, Aug. 10, 2010 at Weed-Corley-Fish Lake Travis Chapel in Lakeway.

Arrangements by Weed-Corley-Fish Lake Travis, 411 Ranch Road 620 South, Lakeway, Texas 78734 (512) 263-1511. To share memories and view obituary please visit www.wcfish.com