Gary D. Downing Died 2007

DOWNING

Posted By: Connie Swearingen-Volunteer (email)
Date: 9/27/2015 at 22:22:07

Sioux City Journal
4 December 2007

Gary D. Downing, 68, of Omaha, formerly of Sioux City, died Saturday, Dec. 1, 2007, in Omaha.

Memorial services will be 10 a.m. Wednesday at St. Peter Catholic Church in Omaha. Visitation with the family present will be 5 to 7 p.m. today, with a 6 p.m. wake service, at West Center Chapel in Omaha.

Gary received his college education at Morningside College in Sioux City, the Philadelphia Art Institute and the San Francisco Art Institute.

He was an instructor at the Jacksonville Art Museum in the 1960s and the early 1970s. He was an adjunct professor at the University of Central Florida in Orlando, where he was instrumental in founding the U.C.F. Film Department. He also developed Marathon Art Productions which usually ran for 48 consecutive hours. In 1972 after a summer teaching photography at the Brownsville School of Ash, he and his family returned to Omaha, where he helped found the Craftmen's Guild and F. Limited, a photography gallery, both located in the Old Market. In 1975, he began teaching at Metropolitan Community College as one of the founding members of the art department. As an instructor, he taught photography, developed television production classes and initiated and developed the electronic imaging department.

He received numerous awards for excellence in teaching including the Phi Theta Kappa Teacher Appreciation Award of the Alpha Eta Sigma Chapter as an instructor at Metropolitan Community College in 1997. He was co-negotiator for the Metropolitan Community College Chapter of the Mehrc State Education Association from 1998 to 2002. He retired from teaching in May 2002.

Survivors include his wife, Dolores; a daughter, Thalia (Downing) Carroll and husband, Brian P., and granddaughter, Abigail Carroll, all of Omaha; and brothers and sisters-in-law, Charles and Mary Lee Downing of Jacksonville, Fla., David and Audrey Downing of Mentor, Ohio, and Clarke and Joyce Downing Jr. of Sioux City.

He was preceded in death by his parents, Clarke Downing Sr. and Lucille Clemens; granddaughters, Clare Elizabeth Carroll and Reilly Shea Carroll; and grandsons, Brendan Michael Carroll and Flannery Joseph Carroll.

Family suggests memorials to the Gary Downing Scholarship in Electronic Imaging, Metropolitan Community College, Elkhorn Valley Campus, 204 W. Dodge Road, Omaha, NE. 68022.