ROY BUSKIRK & GINA BURGESS ANECDOTES

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RIP ROY BUSKIRK
US ARMY SGT- 1966- 1967 VIET NAM
ALLEN COUNTY INDIANA COUNTY  COUNCILMAN AT-LARGE
FARMER BUSINESS MAN FAMILY MAN
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https://www.google.com/search?q=roy+buskirk&newwindow=1&biw=1024&bih=546&tbm=nws&source=lnms&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwik96PvppPQAhWBwiYKHQPLDoYQ_AUICCgB&dpr=1.25
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https://www.google.com/search?q=roy+buskirk&num=40&newwindow=1&biw=1024&bih=546&source=lnms&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwilhd2tp5PQAhWDPCYKHdnoAMwQ_AUIBygA&dpr=1.25
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VIDEO CLIPS:
https://www.google.com/search?q=roy+buskirk&num=40&newwindow=1&biw=1024&bih=546&source=lnms&tbm=vid&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjCuMnEp5PQAhXIRSYKHQHIC2EQ_AUICygE
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https://www.facebook.com/GinaMBurgess/posts/10210803343864504
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Gina Burgess added 4 new photos.

2 hrs · 

IN MEMORIUM, REMEMBERING ROY BUSKIRK – THE MAN: As many of you already know, Roy Buskirk passed away yesterday afternoon. [1][2][3] And since Roy’s passing, which has been just about 30 hours ago----I’ve found myself struggling to put into words all the thoughts going through my head. Local media is touting how Roy was a beloved public servant, sentiments that were begun by a press release sent forthwith by the Allen County Commissioners. And that is true---Roy was and IS a beloved public servant and to those that knew him (family, friends, those he represented and those he mentored), he will remain just that. Beloved.

Politically, Roy’s passing has set off a wave of panic among the GOP---who were already nervous about this particular County Council At-Large race. This panic is due to the new requirement this year that voters had to actually cast a specific ballot for At-Large positions. Gone were the days when voting straight ticket Republican meant automatically voting for 3 Republicans for 3 At-Large spots.

As I sit here typing this, I can’t help but grin a little at the irony. For years, the Allen County GOP really didn’t give much to Roy in terms of financial contributions and support. Now, don’t get me wrong, the GOP was kinder to Roy than some other parties are to candidates who don’t tow the party line---and by kind, I mean the GOP didn’t purposefully put up obstacles against one of their own. But in terms of actually spending money on Roy’s campaign---the local GOP really didn’t do that. Until this year. When the ACGOP ran ads in support of all 3 of their At-Large candidates to remind voters to cast ballots for these guys. And the reason I am chuckling (and I’m sure Roy is too) is that nothing says poetic irony like a political party not spending money on a candidate and then the year they do, that candidate literally rolls over and dies. LOL!! ;-) (Sorry, ACGOP, but it’s funny and again, I’m sure Roy’s chuckling a bit about that too.)

Politically, Roy’s passing has set off a wave of renewed hope and optimism among the Dems---will Roy’s death combined with the new voting requirements combined with early voting taking place at libraries, which tend to lean more Dem than GOP---will all these factors give the Dems a historical At-Large win? Historical because it would literally be the first time in recorded history that a Democrat has won an Allen County Council At-Large race. (And to those who find that hard to believe, please reach out to Andy Downs of the Downs Political Center. For once, he’ll back me up here.)

With that renewed hope and optimism comes a renewed energy and with that renewed energy came ill-timed calls to action. Some Dems were very brazen in public calls to action, ranging from how the Election Board or the GOP should remove Roy from the ballot so votes cast for him don’t count …to …how I should endorse a Democrat or at least withdraw my endorsement of “a dead man.”

And then there were a few misguided folks---who were so misguided that I am not going to disclose their political affiliation as an act of mercy to that political party---but these misguided individuals were very quick and very aggressive at pointing out how “…Roy should of never have run for office this year if he was that sick…” or “…see what happens when a sick person runs for office and dies, now they’re taking up a spot…” or “….this was probably the GOP’s plan all along….” I can’t help but shake my head in sadness at such messages. Clearly, people will see what they want to see.

Politically, Roy’s passing has set off a wave of questions within the greater Allen County community. Some really good questions, like “…what happens now…” or “…what happens if Roy gets elected….”? To which the media has already begun to put out answers: “…If voters re-elect Buskirk on Tuesday, Republican precinct committee members will select his replacement to serve out his term. If he is not re-elected, committee members will choose someone to fill out his term for the rest of the year.” [2]

Politically, Roy’s passing set off a wave of phone calls and text messages to me, many I failed to return. I haven’t had the heart to look into my email. And my fb inbox overflowed with messages from all sides of the political spectrum. I have Democrats asking, demanding, and even begging for me to endorse a Dem in the County Council race. I have Republicans expressing frustrations about the inappropriateness of the Dem’s renewed aggressive energy. I have Republicans and Independents asking questions about the Dem At-Large candidates because “…it just doesn’t feel right not voting for 3 At-Large candidates….” to “…voting for only 1 person when you can vote for 3 seems like you’re throwing away votes.” (And to everyone who has asked about the Dem At-Large candidates, I will do my best to answer your questions as I can. And to everyone who has asked me about endorsement---I will have a formal public response to that tomorrow--Sunday.)

As I pause for a moment and review the four paragraphs I just wrote---stopping more to figure out how to go forward in what I’m trying to write and need to express, straining to put my thoughts into words----a wave of profound sorrow just washes over me as tears become tempered with anger, frustration and remorse. I’ve just written four paragraphs about the political impact of Roy’s death and it makes me want to scream: “ROY BUSKIRK WAS MORE THAN AN ELECTED LEADER!!”

And folks---Roy was more than an elected leader. It really breaks my heart to think this is how he is being remembered. The only way he is being remembered.

Please don’t get me wrong---I know there’s a lot of well-intended people out there. As an example, I am thankful that the Allen County Commissioner have ordered all flags on all county-owned buildings to be lowered to half -mast in honor of Roy. (And I would hope that the City of Fort Wayne, the Allen County Republican Party, and the Allen County Democratic Party follow the example as a show of unity and support for a fallen community leader. But I would also hope that all flags return to full-mast on midnight November 10th so that they are flying high and in all their glory for Veterans Day, November 11th. Please remember that Veterans Day is a day to honor LIVING veterans; Memorial Day honors deceased veterans. Having flags lowered on Veterans Day is disrespectful to our living veterans and disrespectful to Roy too. He wouldn’t want that.)

So much of the discussion is about Roy’s political service, that we are forgetting Roy---the man.

Roy was and is more than a County Councilman.

He was more and is more than a public servant.

He was more and is more than a community leader.

He was a loving and devoted husband, a proud father, a grandfather, brother/brother-in-law and an uncle. He was a Vietnam-era Army veteran---a retired sergeant. He was a successful and savvy businessman and a realtor. He was a political historian and a lover of history in general. His knowledge and understanding of how things came to be in state and local politics---processes, procedures, structure, history, etc.--- was absolutely phenomenal. He was a living, breathing walking encyclopedia of how Indiana government functioned and dysfunctioned.

He liked people but really didn’t like social media, tolerating it because he felt he had to----although he did find temporary respite in playing Farmville, which he actually rocked at. (And yes to those who remember and are wondering---Roy was the inspiration behind my 2012 “Some candidates play Farmville while other candidates actually grew up on a farm” campaign. After he won re-election in 2012, he let me know that he had gotten a chuckle out of that particular reference.)

Roy wasn’t a big fan of cooked carrots. Unless they were in a carrot cake. Made by his wife. Covered with plenty of cream cheese frosting. Then cooked carrots were acceptable….LOL! And please don’t ask me how I know that because I don’t really remember---other than it was something I learned while phone banking beside him in 2014.

Roy had an incredibly competitive streak in him, especially for his age. And I say that with sincere respect and admiration. In 2012, when I was campaigning against him---no matter where I went, he always seemed to juuuust beat me there. And everywhere he went, he’d pass out those red, white and blue “Re-Elect Roy Buskirk for Allen County Council At-Large” nail files. Oh how I looooooathed those darn nail files. They were like little tiny harbingers cutely (and annoyingly) announcing that Roy was here, there and everywhere I wanted to be. And I swear he didn’t juuuuust pass those things out. Those nail files covered the entire county like confetti. It was as if Roy had gotten help from Oprah---“And you get a nail file, and you get a nail file, everybody gets a nail file.” ROFLMAO!! :-D :-D :-D

Roy also had a wicked sense of humor. When he realized that his nail files were getting to me, he did what only Roy would do. He started handing them out.

Directly.

To me.

At each.

And every.

Campaign.

Event.

Dammit….LOL! :-D

And folks-- I literally mean each and every, single event. OMG! He was suuuuuch an @sshole….LOL! And folks, please understand that I mean that in a very sincere, kind and caring way. But make no mistake---he was really an @sshole. And he knew….he KNEEEEEW….he was being an @sshole. And he enjoyed playing the part of “the @sshole.” Why? Because he knew that I KNEW that he was being an @sshole, that he was enjoying playing the part of the @sshole, and because of the method he utilized to give me the nail file---he knew that there wasn’t a darn thing I could do about it. Matter of fact, Roy was so good at this game, that had I not accepted his darn nail file at each and every event….then I would have looked like “the @sshole.” Well played Roy, well played….LOL!! :-D :-DNow, in fairness to Roy, I might have, kinda, sorta had this coming to me. Afterall, I did sort of start things with my “Farmville” campaign. I guess all really is fair in love, war and political campaigns. ;-)

As I reflect on the memories created with and shared by Roy—I have to admit that he was always fair and egalitarian. ALWAYS.

The very first day I met Roy in person was the Friday afternoon at the 2012 New Haven Canal Days merchant tent. I was volunteering at the Dem booth and Roy came over to introduce himself to me, pick up my literature and sort of “assess the competition.” It was a strange and awkward introduction---not because of anything Roy did or anything I did---but rather the other Dems working the booth made it clear that Roy wasn’t welcome there….and neither was I. Roy’s response to the artificially-created tension was to play the role of “senior citizen” and take his time “getting to know me.” Because I didn’t know Roy and didn’t understand what was going on, I just went with the flow the best I could. I couldn’t tell if he was just fishing for information (which of course he was---I was new and he was competitive…duh?!) or if there was something else going on.

As traffic inside the merchants tent picked up, Roy excused himself and went back to the GOP booth. When traffic inside the tent slowed down to near non-existent, I went down to the GOP booth so I could make my own “assessments” and picked up some of Roy’s literature. While down at the GOP booth, Roy took me aside and warned me not to leave my literature with the Dems---that it wasn’t likely the Dems would pass out my materials and that my stuff would more likely end up in the trash.

It was a regrettable situation. The other Dems volunteering that year at the New Haven Canal Days booth had treated me so wretchedly, so disrespectfully, and were so openly hostile---that others outside of and including Roy couldn’t help but witness it. Part of the problem was that I had miscalculated the situation with the Dems. Naively, I thought they had gotten all the anger, hate, rancor, bitterness and hostilities out of their system by way of the 2012 May Primary. My thinking was that after the Primary, everyone would pull together, get along, form a unified team and be all like “Go Team Go.” Aaaannnd, I was wrong. Really, REALLY, R-E-A-L-L-Y catastrophically wrong.

Fortunately, after I left the GOP booth to go back to the Dem booth—another vendor motioned me over, expressed similar concerns about my materials that Roy had expressed, and offered to pass out my materials the rest of Canal Days. I was grateful for the help from that vendor and others in our community that day. And I was even more grateful for Roy’s sense of honor and fair play.

Roy didn’t have to be fair in his dealings with me. And folks, he REALLY didn’t. We were competitors, afterall. But the thing about Roy was that he CHOSE to be the kind of man who would act with honor, integrity and fairness with everyone he dealt with, friend or foe.

He also chose to be the kind of man who would tell you things like it was---and it didn’t matter who you were. For Roy, that was a matter of respect. He would respect you enough to be honest with you and he expected you to respect him enough to be honest with him. Roy and I—both coming from military families---were kindred spirits in that philosophy. In 2014, I watched him go toe-to-toe with members of his own party regarding the County Government Restructuring proposal. He was polite, respectful but firm in his discourse in public. Behind-the-scenes, he could be fierce and ferocious on the topic. Some people thought Roy was just trying to protect his job, but that wasn’t really what Roy was about. He knew the history of how and why the State legislature had originally removed financial oversight from the County Commissioners and gave that responsibility to County Council. He also knew that the majority of his constituents didn’t like the idea of Unigov. Some were fearful of the idea. Roy wasn’t trying to protect or “keep” his job; Roy was doing the job his constituents wanted him to do.

Some of the reasons Roy is and will remain loved by his constituents was his knack for common sense, that he was down-to-earth and really approachable and he kept the lines of communication open with everyone. In a world where common sense and person-to-person communication is a rarity, Roy was like a beacon of light shining bright against darkness. Another reason his constituents love him--if Roy promised you that he would look into something, he kept his promise. He was really good about getting back to people. Honestly, Roy was probably the most responsive political leader in all of Allen County, even more responsive than Democrat Geoff Paddock whose also right up there.

Roy also seemed to believe that he had a duty or a sense of responsibility to help teach, guide and mentor the next generation of likely political leaders in our community—be it over the phone, over coffee and donuts, or a beer and brat, or over the course of a road trip to Indy. His mentoring and guidance weren’t along political lines---although admittedly he mentored more up-and-coming Republican leaders than non-Republican ones. His mentoring was more along the practical lines of teaching how government functioned, the relationship between State and Local government, and how to “read between the lines” of reading between the lines. While many people in Roy’s position were more interested in “developing the economy,” Roy was more interested in developing a sense of responsible stewardship in the next generation of political leadership.

Roy also had the uncanny knack for finding positives in situations that at first glance didn’t seem so positive. There was an incident in 2013 that led to one of the first telephone calls between Roy and I that wasn’t really politically-oriented. Roy, myself and other local leaders (political, business and community) attended a meeting held by union leader Tom Lewindowski, who was going to share information he and others had gathered to make a determination on how effective tax abatements were, if they were creating the job opportunities being promoted or not. The meeting had a Q & A session at the end and I was one of the folks with questions. There was one question that I asked which caused everyone in the room to pause. The room fell so silent you could have heard a pin drop. Apparently, one of my unknown and undeveloped talents back then was “poaching the elephant” in the room.

The next day, local media coverage of the event attributed my question as a quote coming from someone else. Roy reached out to me to see how I was doing and to gauge my reaction to the situation. I was, understandably, annoyed. Roy told me that instead of being annoyed, I should see it as a compliment. And I was like “WHAT? How on earth is THAT a compliment?” To which Roy laughed and then rather gently explained that I had asked the one question that lots of people were thinking and no one else had the courage or fortitude to ask and local media’s inclusion of that quote (and attributing it to someone else) was confirmation of just how big a deal that really was. And that the last thing they (local media) wanted to do was give the one person in the room (who shouldn’t have had to ask the question to begin with) credit for asking a question that others (elected officials) should have raised. He encouraged me to start changing my frame of reference and to start taking notice of these small, untold victories.

Over the few short years that I had the pleasure and honor of knowing Roy, I have learned a lot. There have been times when he and I didn't see eye-to-eye, but during those times Roy always...ALWAYS...kept the lines of communication opened. And I have always been grateful for that.

In many ways, Roy has helped me to become a better community leader….and a better person. I am indebted to Roy for the lessons he taught me (and others), grateful for the time he spent getting to know and understand me, and appreciative of his ability to look past political affiliations and my many personal shortcomings……. and see me as an individual just wanting to help make our community a better place.

I share my memories with everyone today because while Roy was a remarkable County Councilman, a notable community leader, and a humble but distinguished public servant---and he sincerely was---he was also so very much than that. He was an amazing mentor, an extremely kind and generous man and a blessing to all who knew him.
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SOURCES:
[1] http://wane.com/…/allen-co-councilman-roy-buskirk-passes-a…/
[2] http://news-sentinel.com/…/Allen-County-Council-President-R…
[3] http://www.journalgazette.net/…/Councilman-Buskirk--72--die…
[4] http://www.21alive.com/…/Allen-County-Council-president-say…
[5] https://www.facebook.com/GinaMBurgess/posts/10210047170600645

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