Gary Mack Davis, of Monticello, KY passed from this life on June 1 ^st , 2022 at Baptist Health Hospital in Lexington, KY surrounded by those he loved.

Gary was born April 7 ^th , 1954 in Key West, Florida.  He was the oldest child of Bruce and Hazel Lamb Davis both of whom preceded him in death.  He was also preceded in death by a younger sister Patricia Ann who died at birth.

He is survived not only by his sister and brother-in-law, Mary Ellen Gray and Dr. Ronald McFarland, her daughter Tara Gray, and her son, Keelin and his children, Chloe and Mason Gray, but by his brother and sister-in-law, Danny and Vicki Davis and their children, Nikolas, Zoe, Brandon and his wife, Kelsey, and their sons, Greyden and Luca Davis.

Gary graduated from Monticello Independent High School in 1972 and from Western Kentucky University in 1976.  He received a Bachelor of Arts in English with a Minor in Folk Studies.  Entering the Masters of Arts program in Folk Studies at WKU, Gary's focus was Architectural History and Historic Preservation.  He was instrumental in placing an area of Bowling Green, KY. on the National Register of Historic Places.

While working on his Masters, Dr. Lynwood Montell, Professor of Folk Studies at WKU, accompanied him to Wayne County to visit his grandmother, Ina Stearns.  She ran a country store in Slickford, KY.  There he listened to the many stories of the people in and around Slickford.  Professor Montell published Ghosts Along the Cumberlands as well as other books using the stories he heard from Gary's grandmother.

Gary always had a love for waterfalls and rivers. After teaching Chemistry for a couple of years at Monticello High School, he left the profession for the excitement of the rivers.  From 1979-84 he was an oar boat guide on the New River Gorge and Gauley Rivers, and a Paddle board guide on the North Fork and Big South Fork Gorge of the Cumberland River.  During this time, he became a freelance Upper Yough guide and explored rivers from the Colorado River in the Grand Canyon to the Snake River in Idaho.

By 1984 Gary was a co-owner of Upper Yough Expeditions and as such he pioneered commercial whitewater rafting on the extreme rapids of the Upper Youghiohgeny River.  His company obtained one of the three licenses given to Whitewater rafting companies by the state to Maryland to operate on that river.

As a whitewater guide, he had over 31 years of river guiding experience and accumulated over 99,000 actual river miles. He had several 1 ^st and 2 ^nd descents on several rivers and creeks that were considered too dangerous to be run at that time.

Because of that record, he and his business partner Dave Martin were hired in July of 2002 to explore over 300 miles of Peru's Rio Urubamba from the Sacred Valley to the low jungle.  This expedition was to assess the feasibility of commercial and tourism use of the river.

While searching for class V and class VI rivers to run from Canada to Peru, Gary met many interesting people.   Among these were Buddhist monks, Rastas, a Shawnee tribal chief, and a Lakota medicine man. He took several high-profile celebrities rafting.  He guided among others, John Stamos, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Neil Armstrong.

When he left the rivers and returned home to Monticello, Gary continued to seek discovery.  He became extremely invested in family history and genealogy and in 2006 he placed four military stones on the graves of four generations of veterans in the Davis family.  In 2011 he became a volunteer for the W.C. Kennedy, Jr Memorial Museum.  While there, he compiled twenty plus notebooks on Wayne County History, wrote several articles on Wayne County for the local paper, and collected records for a massive effort called the Military Project.  This project is ongoing, and covers the military history of Wayne County service men and women from the Revolutionary War to today.

Gary was an avid U of K basketball and football fan and was the kind of person who left a different imprint on everyone he met.  He could be the adventurer, the intellectual, the jokester, the genealogist, and for some, he was all business.   For us, his family, he was all those people.   He was Mack.  We will miss him every day.  Until we meet again.

A Celebration of the Life of Gary Mack Davis will be Friday, June 24 ^th from ^. 5:00 PM until 8 PM.  It will be held at the Pro Video Audio Productions building at 250 Creekview Dr.  in Monticello, KY.   (This is the Creekview Dr. between Walgreens and the Monticello Utilities Co.)

A Final Farewell will be held at the Koger cemetery in Slickford Sunday June 26 ^th at 1:30 PM.

Hicks-Vaughn Funeral Home in charge of arrangements.