Obituaries

Send Flowers Dr. James Stephen Gay was born October 11th, 1939, at Tripler Army Medical Center in Honolulu, Hawaii, an automatic Army Brat. After Pearl Harbor was bombed, the family moved from Oahu back to the mainland in Dec. 1941 and eventually settled in Gulfport, MS, where his father completed his military service in 1947. Dr. Gay graduated from Gulfport High School in 1956, received his Bachelor’s degree in chemistry from Southwestern at Memphis (now Rhodes College) in 1960, and his MD from Tulane in 1964. During the course of his medical school studies, he joined the USAR in order to participate in the Army’s Senior Medical Program. The program made him a commissioned officer during his senior year, and gave him the opportunity to do his internship at Tripler Hospital in Hawaii, one of the Army’s teaching hospitals, where he enjoyed the rotating internship in such a beautiful place. Dr. Gay applied for an Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery (ENT) residency at Walter Reed, only to find that all the slots for that residency were filled for the next two years. He subsequently applied for a two year assignment to the newly created United States Army Special Forces, was accepted and assigned, beginning in September 1965. Training there included jump school, underwater warfare (Scuba) school, mountain climbing school, and Unconventional Warfare School, at the end of which he was considered to be a fully trained Special Forces soldier, a Green Beret. The training was such that he occasionally commented that he could not believe the Army was paying him to do these things. America was becoming embroiled in fighting communism in a place called Viet Nam, and Dr. Gay received orders to go to Viet Nam in July 1966, where he was immediately assigned as the Surgeon (an administrative title denoting responsibility, not medical expertise) for all the Special Forces personnel in III Corps, which included 24 A- and B- teams, about 10,000 CIDG (predominantly Montagnard) soldiers, and a small 84-bed hospital which he helped to build. That year in Viet Nam he characterized as one of the most challenging, intriguing, interesting, and rewarding years of his life, and the people with whom he worked the most capable. While there, his assignment to Walter Reed to begin a four-year Otolaryngology Residency to begin in September 1967 was approved. After completing that residency in 1971, and now a fully trained Otolaryngologist, he was assigned to the 97th General Hospital in Frankfurt, Germany, where he served first as a staff physician, later becoming the chief of that service. In 1972 while in Germany, he met and married the love of his life, Rita Claire Rinderle, a young woman who had just earned her Master’s Degree at Villanova and was taking a year off to teach in an American military school in Germany. He was then asked in 1974 to be the Assistant Chief of Service at Brooke Army Medical Center, a large teaching hospital at Ft. Sam Houston. In 1976 he and his wife were blessed by the birth of their son J. Stephen Gay at Ft. Sam Houston. There he served until 1977, when he decided to get out of the Regular Army and set up private practice in Sherman, Texas. He did not leave the Army completely, however, and immediately joined the Texas Army National Guard. There he was promoted to 0-6 Colonel, and eventually was made commanding officer of the 217th Evacuation Hospital, the Guard’s only hospital in Texas. Upon completion of that assignment in 1987, he transferred from the National Guard to the USAR, where he became the Deputy Commander of the 94th General Hospital in Mesquite, Texas. That hospital was mobilized and deployed in support of Operation Desert Storm in January, 1991. Dr. Gay remained two more years with the unit, and finally resigned in 1993 after 31 years with the military in various capacities, proud to have been a soldier. Dr. Gay had set up a busy private practice in Sherman, Texas, when he left Brooke in 1977; all of his military duties and activities after that were sandwiched between his private practice responsibilities- but he did it. He practiced out of WNJ and Medical Plaza hospitals, holding various positions of responsibility including Chief of Surgery, and Chief of Staff at Medical Plaza. He and his patients enjoyed a close doctor-patient relationship which he enjoyed immensely. Dr. Gay was very generous with his time and talents, especially when it involved giving to others through Grace United Methodist Church. He went with that church to Mexico in 1997 to bring medical support to the Tarahumara Indians in central Mexico. He guided the church to negotiate for the digging of a water well in Kenya, Africa in an arid location. Ultimately successful, he accompanied a group to Africa to dedicate that well once it was completed. That well should serve the people for generations. Following Hurricane Katrina, he went to Slidell, LA, with a group from Grace to repair roofs damaged by that storm; and later down to Port Arthur, Texas, for the same reason following Hurricane Rita. He organized and had trained, through the Methodist VIM organization, a group of people from the church to be early responders in case of regional catastrophes, such as tornadoes and floods, and accompanied a group to Western Oklahoma to help after severe wind damage to that area. One of his passions was giving blood, toward which end he organized and coordinated a routine blood drive at Grace Methodist Church every two months by Texoma Regional Blood Center, and that has been a successful endeavor. He himself gave over 13 gallons of blood. He and Rita served routinely in Meals on Wheels as long as he could, where he enjoyed getting out to see the people. Dr. Gay was instrumental in routinely bringing a number of people, he and Rita included, from Grace to the Grand Central Station soup kitchen which serves the poor and needy six days a week. He was invited by the medical staff at one of the two medical schools in Nepal, this one in Dharan, Nepal, to come to Nepal and teach ENT residents. This he did for two months in 2003 as a visiting Professor of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery shortly after he retired. Dr. Gay helped to teach the ACLS (Advanced Cardiac Life Support) class at WNJ for about five years. The activity he enjoyed most, however, was reading to the children of the first and the fourth grades, at several different schools, including Crutchfield Elementary with Mrs. Margaret Kloppers, and most recently at Sory Elementary School with Mrs. Cindy Sloan (first grade) and Mrs. Laura Blalock (fourth grade). He said that he never felt as important as when those children ran up to him each week calling out “Dr. Jim! Dr. Jim!” Dr. Gay leaves behind his wife of 43 years, Rita; his son J. Stephen Gay and his wife Jennifer and their three children Laura, Andrew, and Harrison; his brother John H. Gay and his wife Ginger Kearns Gay. He also leaves behind, with his profound thanks, a loving, warm, supportive church family from Grace United Methodist Church who made his struggle against an unrelenting cancer not only bearable but almost easy, as they were with him every step of the way, a reminder of God’s love and Grace. And to all the medical personnel and staff at both hospitals, WNJ and TMC, who cared for him during this journey, he sends his heartfelt thanks for the care and professionalism which each exhibited. A Celebration of Life Service will be held Monday, March 14, 2016 at Grace United Methodist Church, Sherman, Texas at 10:30 a.m. with Rev. John Fleming of the church officiating. The family will receive friends at Dannel Funeral Home Sunday evening, March 13, 2016 from 5:00 to 7:00 p.m. A Private Entombment Service will follow on Thursday, March 17, 2016 at DFW National Cemetery, Dallas, Texas. In lieu of flowers, donations to Camille Snyder and her “Take It to the Streets” work, Grace UMC of Sherman, Texas, Home Hospice of Grayson County, or The Wounded Warrior Project. Arrangements are under the direction of Dannel Funeral Home. Online condolences may be registered online at www.dannelfuneralhome.com.