SAMUEL GRAY

1949 - 2024

SAMUEL "SAM"

REED GRAY

Jan. 10, 1949 – Nov. 5, 2024

It is with profound sadness and heartache that our family share the news of the death of Samuel (Sam) Reed Gray on November 5, 2024, due to a collision that took place on the east side of Bakersfield while he was on his way to visit his sister Susan and her family and to visit with friends before the Thanksgiving Holiday. He was a loving husband, father, grandfather, great-grandfather, brother, brother-in-law, and friend, and he is missed so much more than can be expressed.

Sam is survived by his wife Kathy; children, Billy, Robin, and Cecilia; grandchildren, Erin, Karen, Amanda, and Devin; and great-grandchildren, Giannabella Guzman, Kassia Lynn Johnson, and JJ Whisenant; sisters, Susan Rapp (Frank) and Rebecca (Becky) Wright (Michael), and brothers, Richard and Roy, in addition to many nieces and nephews and grandnieces. He has extended family in Texas and Pennsylvania and Illinois.

Sam was born in Brawley, California, on January 10, 1949, to Bill and Joyce Gray. He started working for his father in the service station business at the tender age of 12. They had an Arco station, a Chevron station and then the Union 76 station at Imperial and Main Streets in El Centro, which Sam managed for a number of years. He also managed the U-Haul franchise for his father, and he and his father had Gray's Towing Service for many years. When Sam left El Centro for Oregon, many loyal customers bemoaned the fact that they would be hard pressed to find a mechanic as competent as Sam to take care of the maintenance and condition of their vehicles.

After moving to Oregon, he eventually went to work for BJ's Texaco and Towing; then Seven Feathers Truck and Travel in Canyonville, Oregon, assuming managerial roles there as well; and for the last ten years for Jim Rogers at Roger's Tune-up in Roseburg, Oregon.

When in El Centro, California, Sam was very active in the De Anza Search and Rescue Unit, serving for a time as their Treasurer and taking great pride in helping to make that unit as good as it was at the services which they provided, especially for those stranded in the desert. He also was a member of the El Centro Optimist Club. He had a huge love of the desert and 4-wheeling and just being out in nature. He loved being with his family, hiking, camping, photographing nature, off-roading, 4-wheeling, and he was always up for adventure in discovering something new "just around the next bend."

The family asks that in lieu of flowers, please consider a donation to the Diabetes Association, the Cancer Society, or the Kidney Foundation. The family will have a celebration in the spring.