Ray Gish

Ray Gish was born in 1934 to Katie and Roscoe Gish and was raised on a farm near Flora, Indiana. Ray's father died when he was twelve, so he became the responsible man of the house at an early age.
As Ray moved into his teenage years he became very involved in many aspects of 4H, raising animals, doing leadership activities, and growing corn. If fact, during high school he was Junior Corn King for the entire state and one of Indiana's representatives to the National 4H Congress that was held in Chicago. After high school he was drafted by the Army and sent to Communications school in New Jersey before shipping out to Salem base on a mountain top in South Korea. There he and his buddies maintained the communications links between several cities in South Korea.
After he returned from Korea he went to work for Sayco, a plumbing fixture company, and married for the first time. At work he became floor manager and worked at Sayco until he developed a hernia which made lifting boxes of plumbing fixtures impossible.
While he was recovering from that surgery he went back to technical school and got a degree in Electronics. At that point Carla, Ray and Katie decided to move to Phoenix for the broader opportunities that the Valley offered. As soon as they arrived Ray got the job with Muzak, then part of the Harkins empire, and worked with Muzak for the rest of his career. The company went through many ownership changes, some good - some bad, but Ray was the stable force, doing installations, service calls and managing the service staff for over 20 years.
Soon after coming to Arizona, Ray and Carla parted company and Ray married Terry Thomas. It is that marriage that resulted in David and Sean, and Ray's involvement with Fandom.
Ray started working with conventions and art shows at AlterCon in 1980, the small, quickly-organized convention held as a substitute for LepreCon 6 and has been active ever since. He has been a board member of both CASFS and LepreCon, Inc, was a founding member and board member of WesternSFA, chaired LepreCon 14 and 24, and run art shows for LepreCon, CopperCon, WesterCon, NASFiC, World Fantasy Con, acted as treasurer for LepreCons and so forth. But basically if it had an art show, Ray ran it or helped run it. His driving interest has been that Phoenix art shows took care of artists and that Phoenix fans got to experience great fantasy and science fiction art. He has built art flats, spent hours doing paperwork, shipped art, done artist mailings because he loved the artists and the fans. In addition, Ray was involved in other aspects of conventions, he will be missed for all the little things he did as well as the big ones, like ordering ribbons and just being a friend to those who needed it.
After Ray and Terry split up, Ray met and married Pinkie. With her he spent his time traveling, and just enjoying life. He finally got the marriage thing right. Pinkie added her children to his family and Ray relished spending time with her and them
Not many of the fans know that Ray's other love was car racing. Growing up in Indiana he became a fan of the Indy 500 and often went to practice and qualifying. After moving to Arizona, for many years he attended both Indy car races at PIR each year and listened to or watched the big Indianapolis race live and then avidly watch any after-race coverage. Those of you who know Ray, probably will not be surprised that each year he kept charts of average speeds, who was leading the race at 10 lap intervals and so forth. Like everything he loved he liked knowing as much as he could about the races, the drivers and the cars.
He was also involved in other community activities including running the sound room for Glass and Garden Church for many years and recently acting as his homeowner's association president.
He is survived by his wife Pinkie, his children, Sean and David, Sylvana, his step-children, Monique, Danita, Richard and Elizabeth, David. Grandkids Joshua, Christie, Jacob, Valerie, Sonny ,Tabitha, Emily, Tim. Great Grandkids Alicia, Silas, Jacob, Michael, Brelyn. and lots of friends and fans. . He will be missed in ways both big and little.
Donations to the American Cancer Society