Our deeply loved Gary Gene Shippy, 83, went to be with the Lord on July 18, 2026, after a valiant battle with B-cell lymphoma. His family is grateful for the precious time we spent by his side in the days leading up to his peaceful passing into the loving arms of his Savior, Jesus Christ.

Gary was born on December 9, 1942, in Monroe, Wisconsin, across the border from his hometown of McConnell, Illinois. He was a 1961 graduate of Lena-Winslow High School in Lena, Illinois, and then enrolled at the University of Missouri at Rolla, from which he graduated in 1966 with a bachelor's degree in civil engineering. While in college, he pledged Sigma Nu fraternity, a group of brothers with whom he maintained lifelong friendships.

After graduation, Gary took a job as an engineer-in-training with Howard, Needles, Tammen & Bergendoff, an infrastructure firm based in Kansas City, Missouri. Only eight months later, he met Charlene Susan Wheby, the love of his life, at a Halloween party, where he dressed as a bum in a tattered, dirty suit, which Charlene thought "was so much fun and spoke volumes about his personality" because not everyone had come in costume. But it was the kindness he showed a stranger on one of their early dates that sealed the deal for Charlene. The pair were riding along in Gary's 1960 Ford Fairlane on a freezing-cold, blustery day when he abruptly stopped the car, threw open the driver's door, jumped out, and ran to a mound of snow on the sidewalk. Charlene realized that he'd spotted an elderly man lying in the snow who was struggling to stand, and she watched as 23-year-old Gary picked up the man and gently placed him on the sidewalk. After witnessing such kindness, she "knew he was the one," Charlene recalls fondly.

The devoted pair married on March 25, 1967, and then moved to an apartment in Overland Park, Kansas. Their first son, Michael Scott, was born in Kansas City, Missouri, followed two years later by their second son, Timothy Todd, who was also born in Kansas City, Missouri.

Six months later, in the summer of 1970, Gary transferred to the HNTB office in Dallas, Texas, where he went to work engineering major highways for the growing DFW metroplex. In August 1978, a prominent Dallas civil engineering firm, Turner, Collie & Braden Inc., lured him away, and over the following decades, Gary was the lead engineer on major highway designs throughout Dallas. In particular, in the mid-1980s, Gary designed the extension of the Dallas North Tollway where it meets Interstate 635, or Lyndon B. Johnson Freeway, which he admitted was challenging because he had to calculate safely maneuverable curves that could bypass existing buildings. (Dallasites, please think of Gary the next time you navigate those tollway curves at 70+ mph.) Gary, who earned his Professional Engineer (P.E.) license, also engineered major stretches of U.S. Highway 75 (Central Expressway to Dallasites), the multilane Interstate 635, Texas State Highway 121 (Sam Rayburn Highway), President George Bush Turnpike, and many other roadways in the DFW area. 

After retiring in the early 2000s from his role as vice president at TC&B, Gary settled into a happy but no less hectic life—attending his four grandsons' many sporting events, traveling the world with Charlene and their friends, and playing golf—when a friend and former colleague at the design firm Skanska USA Inc. reached out and asked if Gary would consider coming out of retirement to work in Skanska's Dallas office. Gary thanked him and then said that he was enjoying life as a retiree and grandpa and that he wasn't keen on sitting behind a desk. His friend asked what it would take for him to work for Skanska, and Gary admitted that the only thing that appealed to him was mentoring young engineers. And so it began: Gary's final engineering role was that of a mentor to young Dallas engineers, who learned his precise and meticulous methods for building safe and enduring Texas highways.

In their 56 years as Texans, Gary and Charlene established lifelong Dallas-area friendships and came to love North Texas as their home, rearing Michael and Tim in Richardson before moving to a house in Plano and then to their final home together in Allen, which allowed them to be close to their four grandsons, who were growing up in Frisco. Gary and Charlene were at every baseball game, football game, piano recital, basketball game, orchestra concert, Taekwondo competition, golf tournament, school art exhibit, and school event. Gary, or Papa, as his grandsons called him, even took each boy on an individual road trip after the fifth grade, touring multiple states, including Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, Kansas, Missouri, Iowa and Illinois. Papa was a dependable, loving, invested grandfather who played a monumental role in helping to rear his grandsons.

Gary was also always intentional about communicating with and routinely visiting his beloved family in Illinois, especially when it was time for the annual Shippy Family Reunion. His years growing up in McConnell with his siblings, grandparents, and cousins were filled with great adventures, and he loved sharing stories from his childhood, including the times he rode his bicycle up the giant, somewhat slanted tree in his town; swam in the off-limits Pecatonica River; and the times he was recruited as a fourth grader by the fifth-grade teacher to successfully solve math problems on the chalkboard that had perplexed the fifth graders. His sister, Linda, who was in the fifth grade, didn't appreciate her know-it-all little brother and would chase him home on those days!

As much fun as Gary had in his younger years, he became serious about academics and athletics in high school. He was a class officer and the Lena-Winslow High School delegate to Illinois Boys State. He was also a natural athlete and a varsity basketball, football, baseball, and track star who was the first student from his high school to qualify for the Illinois High School Association Track and Field State Championship in Champaign-Urbana. But it wasn't just athletics that came easily to Gary. Friends knew that when he was in the game—whether it was cards, cornhole, or trivia—whip-smart Gary was always the most likely to win. He was also a skilled carpenter who built flawless, beautiful furniture, having learned the craft from his grandfather and father, who were homebuilders in northern Illinois.

Ultimately, his happiest times were spent with Charlene, with whom he traveled the world, including to multiple European and African countries and parts of Asia. Most recently, in 2023, they took their second trip to Southern Africa, this time to Botswana, and returned home with innumerable stories and photographs of all the beautiful animals they encountered.

Gary is survived by his loving and devoted soulmate, Charlene Wheby Shippy; son Michael Shippy; son Tim Shippy (D'Ann); and four grandsons: Tyler, Walker, Ford, and Wyn. Gary is also survived by his sisters, Linda Shippy Molter of Freeport, Illinois, and Kathie Schulz of Lena, Illinois; and his brother, Dana Shippy of Castle Rock, Colorado. He also leaves behind numerous nieces and nephews whom he dearly loved. Gary was preceded in death by his parents, Marian Jeanette (Teuscher) Brechtel and Clarence Elwyn Shippy.

The family would like to thank the kind and attentive staff on the 8th, 9th, and 10th floors and in the ICU at Medical City Dallas Hospital, for the compassionate care they provided to our Papa.

A celebration of Gary's life will be held at a future date.

In lieu of flowers, the family asks that donations be made to the Lymphoma Research Foundation at https://lymphoma.org/waystohelp/ or by calling 212-349-2910 x2.