Gary Lee Moore

Gary Lee Moore passed away from a heart attack early in the morning on October 30, 2025. His family is grateful for the valiant efforts of the Gresham Fire and Emergency Services Team and the Portland Adventist Medical Center Emergency Room staff to revive him.

Gary is survived by his wife, Carla; his son, Charles Moore; his daughter, Courtney Reddington; his grandchildren, Joshua and Lily Reddington; his nephews, Charles and Cliff Moore; his niece, Gerri Ries; and his first wife, Jeanne Coleman. He was preceded in death by his mother, Naomi; his father, Eulan Ray; and his older brother, Charles.

A lifelong explorer, Gary filled his daughter's early years with adventure, cross-country travels to archaeological sites, and explorations of the hidden corners of history. His son, at ten days old, became one of the youngest ever participants in an archaeological excavation.

Gary brought that same spirit of discovery to his relationships with his grandchildren. With Joshua, he shared the art of fly-fishing and blacksmithing, teaching him to craft handmade flies. With Lily, he shared a deep love of music, exploring record stores and museums together, visiting her in Florida during college, and delighting in whale watching along Oregon's coastline. His children and grandchildren treasure the heirloom hunting rifles he passed down to them – symbols of his craftsmanship and love of the outdoors. He was immensely proud of his children and grandchildren, and they loved him dearly.

Gary's curiosity, creativity, edgy wit, adventurous spirit, and devotion to his friends and family will be deeply missed and always remembered by all who knew and loved him.

Gary was born in the same bed where his mother was born, on his grandmother's farm near El Reno, Oklahoma. He spent the first four years of his life on that farm with his grandmother, parents, and older brother. He was proud that his mother worked as a “Rosie the Riveter” during WWII.

After the war, Gary's parents became teachers and the family followed teaching assignments, moving to Texas. Gary identified as a West Texan. He spent the rest of his childhood in Tornillo, Barnhart, and San Angelo, Texas. Gary worked hard throughout his life. At 13 he got his first “ranch” driver’s license to work on a sheep ranch near Barnhart. He also wrangled cattle. As a teenager, Gary worked many jobs, including delivering telegrams via motorcycle and lifeguarding. Gary found his lifelong passion, archaeology, while working one summer on an archaeological “dig.”

Gary graduated from San Angelo Central High in 1960. After high school, he attended what was then San Angelo Junior College. He enjoyed motorcycles, drag racing, playing bridge, long philosophical discussions with his friends, and getting into mischief of all kinds. Gary made many dear friends during those and in following years; he loved them dearly and stayed in contact with them throughout his life. His death came within a week of returning from a Texas reunion with friends and family.

In the early 1960s, Gary attended Mexico City College, where he participated in excavation of the Mayan city of Chichen Itza, long before it was a tourist attraction. On returning to the U.S., Gary married his first wife, Jeanne, and they enrolled in Sul Ross College. He was an ardent caver, a passion he shared with Jeanne and many friends.

In 1967, before the birth of his daughter, Courtney, Gary took a job at IBM in Austin, Texas. But, in the early 1970s, archaeology called Gary again and he left IBM for a job as a field archaeologist with the Texas Highway Department. Gary was in the field, often in the Texas Trans-Pecos, conducting testing, surveys, excavations, and field schools. One project included walking from San Antonio to El Paso surveying the route for Interstate Highway 10. Gary supervised excavation of the Temporary Capitol of Texas, a 1972 project that pioneered use of proton magnetometry in archaeology. During that time, Gary continued coursework at the University of Texas. In 1975, Gary and Jeanne divorced.

In 1977, Gary left Texas to manage a winter excavation on Seneca Nation property in New York. That winter was one of New York's bitterest on record. The site was excavated at subzero temperatures, using tents warmed by propane heaters. While there, Gary was inducted into the False Face Society. Shortly before his death, Gary had renewed work on a second false face he began carving in 1978.

In late summer 1978, Gary migrated to Colorado to work with the University of Colorado's Laboratory for Environmental Archaeology. Gary remained in Colorado for the next 37 years, doing archaeology, travelling all over the country, for multiple firms and institutions. In 1979, he married his wife of 46 years, Carla. Gary joked that his wife, a geologist, worked on rocks and he worked on broken rocks. He also said there were three kinds of rocks, “skipping rocks, plunking rocks, and rocks you paint green.”

In 1985, Gary's son, Charles (“Cully”) was born. Ten days after his son's birth, Gary returned to Wyoming, taking the whole family with him for a field session. Gary continued fieldwork in the Colorado/Wyoming area until 1989. From 1989-1990, Gary worked as a supervisory archaeologist at the San Juan County Museum at Salmon Ruins in New Mexico.

In 1990, Gary returned to graduate school at Colorado State University (CSU), earning his master's degree in archaeology. At CSU, he was also an anthropology instructor. After graduating, Gary worked for several firms before becoming an anthropology instructor at Aims Community College. During his tenure at Aims, Gary took every welding course Aims offered and began a new passion, blacksmithing.

Gary was a charter member of the Society of Professional Archaeologists, the precursor of the current Register of Professional Archaeologists (ROPA). He was a past Chairman of both the ROPA and the Colorado Council of Professional Archaeologists Ethics Committees.

Between field projects, and during his studies, Gary served as Scoutmaster for Boy Scout Troop 61 in Lyons, CO, taking the troop to summer field camps, on hikes, and trips to historical and archaeological sites. He also served on the Longmont, CO Museum Board, and contributed to the Old Lyons Recorder, writing a “Curmudgeon” column, and covering local youth sporting events.

In 2007, following Hurricane Katrina, Gary came out of semi-retirement to do archaeology for a contractor to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) in New Orleans. He worked multiple disasters across the country for FEMA, including a 2013 deployment for a Colorado flood that impacted his own home in Lyons. Gary worked intermittently on FEMA projects until 2020.

Gary's favorite non-working archaeological trip was a 2011 tour of Stonehenge.

In 2016, Gary and Carla moved to Sandy, Oregon to be near their son, Charles, and daughter in law, Alisha. They relocated to Gresham in 2022.

Please feel welcome to share your condolences, memories, and photos on this page to be seen by Gary's friends and loved ones.