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.jpg) Kearney resident, 61
KEARNEY - Gary E. Henning, 61, of Kearney died of cancer Monday, Aug. 6, 2012, at Good Samaritan Hospital.
Services will be at 2:30 p.m. Friday at First Lutheran Church with the Revs. Eric Lesher and Rebecca McDermott officiating. Burial will be at Kearney Cemetery.
Visitation will be from 5-8 p.m. Thursday at O'Brien-Straatmann-Redinger Funeral Home.
He was born Jan. 28, 1951, in Kearney to Harvey and Betty (Saathoff) Henning.
On May 3, 1975, he married Judy Monson.
Survivors include his wife; daughters, Nicole Henning-McNeil and her husband, Jason, of Greenville, S.C., and Stacy Henning and her friend, Jeremy Hurt, of Kearney; brothers, Tom and his wife, Mary, and Bob and his wife, Michele, all of Kearney, Greg and his wife, Suanne, of North Platte and Stephen and his wife, Stacey, of Pacific Palisades, Calif.; sister-in-law, Janice Garza and her husband, Mario, of Pembroke Pines, Fla.; nephews, including Chad and his wife, Melissa, of Kearney, Mathew of North Platte and Christopher of Pacific Palisades; nieces, Michelle Harter and her husband, Andy, of Kearney, Kaleena Shannon and her husband, Brian, of Lincoln and Bianca Aravena and Crystal Busciglio, both of Tampa, Fla.; and eight grandnieces and grandnephews.
Gary was educated in Kearney Public Schools and graduated from Kearney High School in 1969. He received a bachelor's degree in business administration from Kearney State College in 1973. He worked his entire life at Cash-Wa Distributing where he was executive vice president. He also owned and managed Broken Bow Wholesale from 1980 to 1989.
Gary was an avid hunter. He was a past shooter and board member of the Nebraska One Box Pheasant Hunt in Broken Bow. He was a member of the 2006 Nebraska One Box Pheasant Hunt Past Shooter Champion Team. He was also a member of the Nebraska One Box Foundation Board. He enjoyed fishing and playing golf.
His yellow lab, Jake, was a master hunter and a Grand Hunting Retriever Champion. He competed in the 2006, 2007 and 2008 HRCH International Grand Competitions.
He was a member of First Lutheran Church in Kearney and Our Savior Lutheran Church in Broken Bow. He attended Bible Camp as a youth and accepted Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior. Gary was also a 32nd-degree Mason, a member of Rob Morris Lodge, Scottish Rite and Fort Kearney Shrine Club.
He was preceded in death by his grandparents; niece, Bari Lou Henning; and father-in-law, Russell Monson.
Memorials are suggested to the Good Samaritan Hospital Foundation, Nebraska One Box Pheasant Hunt Foundation, and the Harvey and Betty Henning Family Scholarship Fund at the University of Nebraska Foundation.
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Randy Brown
Another classmate from the neighborhood gone, but not forgotten, Gary. We did a lot of growing up together. Daily thoughts trigger memories of you.
Nancy Rogers (Williams)
For Gary Henning
In the pre-dawn darkness this late autumn morning along the Platte, I crept carefully down a dry stream bed illuminated by the waning full moon in a clear but still night sky. when I neared my cedar hideout I turned towards the south west and looked upwards. Hearing only distant highway sounds, I stood quietly, beneath ORION, and said a prayer for my lost friend. I thought about the similar mornings that he and I had marched along wandering trials to our deer blinds set up along the Loup River. Remembering how we too paused in silence, and watched this same sky, as if we were somehow connected to this ancient celestrial hunter, inwardly questioning if we were mysteriously following some right of passage ritual. On one such mornig with Gary, I was thrilled by the sight and sounds of wild turkeys roosting in the craggie cottonwood branches high over head, I wanted to stay there listening to the waking birds. I remembered wishing that we could be as silent as the warriors from the past, wishing too that this moment could last longer then the time it takes for the sound of footsteps to disappear. But the sun would soon bring warming light across the fields and he was anxious to reach our destination. Though his pace was a fast gait, he winded easily, so after we caught our breath, he hurried further down the path away from the cottonwoods. I followed him but at a slower rate, wanting to take it all in, enjoying each second, each heart beat. I felt that my soul was part of something bigger then. Our kindred spirit* had grown from different teachings. We were hunting buddies, but we were not the same. I knew this vast expanse of rough country was where our friendship could unwind the strands of difference and accept each other for what we believed. I knew too that our age would limit such mornings spent together, and so I looked upon each fleeting moment as a child would search the wonders of Christmas. I didn’t know just how much the memories of those mornings and days we shared would play upon my thoughts. I knew I wanted to save those treasured hunts, that I would one day re-trace the steps in some sense of after glow. But I didn’t know then, that I would lose my friend so soon. We shared more than just an appreciation for the love of hunting in this beautiful natural world. When two pals are living the same snapshot in time, there is no need for words; language didn’t seem necessary then, other than a “thank you” when the day was over. But I wish now, that I could wander those trails again, and find the words I didn’t speak before. My soul IS part of something bigger, from knowing Gary Henning. Autumn 2012
* kindred spirit was Candi Imming’s lable -painer