Bobby Gene Mackley

Bobby Gene Mack­ley, 73, Sur­prise, Ari­zona, for­merly of Galena and Colum­bus, Ohio, passed away on March 12, 2012. He was born April 1, 1938 in Tun­nel­ton, West Vir­ginia to the late Ray and Mary (Layton-Mackley) York. He was the old­est of five children.

The fam­ily moved to Galena in 1950 where he attended Galena Ele­men­tary and Big Wal­nut High School. He grad­u­ated from there in1957 and was class Salu­ta­to­rian. Later that same year he met his wife to be, Sharon Stick­ney, at a friend’s ice skat­ing pond and they mar­ried in 1960. They have one son, Joseph Scott, born in 1964.

Bobby Gene worked for Kroger, National Elec­tric Coil, Vess Bot­tling Co. and Colum­bia Gas of Ohio. He retired from Colum­bia Gas in 1996 after 37 years of ser­vice. Bobby and Sharon moved to Sur­prise, Ari­zona, so they could be closer to their son who was attend­ing UCLA for his Mas­ters in Anesthesia.

They set­tled in Coy­ote Lakes and have been very active mem­bers of the com­mu­nity and made many new friends.

In every com­mu­nity he lived in, Bobby was the one every­one went to when some­thing needed fixed or built. There was noth­ing he couldn’t fix. Even dur­ing his son’s child­hood years, the neigh­bor­hood kids would bring any­thing they needed fixed to him. More recently, in Ari­zona, the kids referred to him as “Bob the Builder”. If any­one was to move away, he was always there to lend a hand. They called him “Mon­key Boy” as he would climb around in the truck over fur­ni­ture and belong­ings to find the per­fect lit­tle niche for that last item.

Bobby loved trav­el­ing and camp­ing. By the time his son was 13, the fam­ily had cov­ered 48 states together. Later on he vis­ited Hawaii. Most recently he was able to visit Alaska by both land and cruise ship. Cur­rently Bobby was work­ing on get­ting his camper ready so his son could share in his love of travel.

Bobby is sur­vived by his lov­ing wife, Sharon (Stick­ney) Mack­ley, and son, Joseph Scott Mack­ley (San­dra Ale­man) of Las Flo­res, Cal­i­for­nia; a sis­ter Dixie (Jesse) Rice of Sun­bury; a sister-in-law Patty Mack­ley of Sun­bury; and by sev­eral nieces and nephews.

He was pre­ceded in death by par­ents Ray and Mary, brother Low­ell Ray Mack­ley, infant sis­ter Lib­erty Kay Mack­ley, infant brother Arthur Lane Mack­ley and by step­fa­ther Willie York.

Ser­vices were held in Ari­zona at Camino Del Sol Funeral home on March 16, 2012.

Bobby was a lov­ing hus­band to Sharon for 51 years and a dot­ing father and best friend to his son Joe, and made all our lives bet­ter for hav­ing known him.

Posted by Gary Henery on May 16 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.