Gregory Keith Phillips

Gregory was born to Ralph and Lauda on August 19, 1998 in Corpus Christi, Texas. He graduated from YES Prep Academy High School in 2017.

He was preceded in death by his grandparents Christine and Keith Gregory, Eva and Herbert Phillips and his birth mother Jessica Garcia. He is survived by his loving parents, Ralph and Lauda Phillips and his sister, Angela. He also leaves behind members of his birth family; Grandmother Nancy, half-brother Izaac, Aunts Angie and Christina, and his birth father Jimmy with whom he had recently connected. He also leaves to cherish his memory numerous aunts, uncles and cousins and his many friends from school, Scouting, swim team, and his many other activities.

From a very young age, Greg made friends wherever he went. Growing up, he was very active in baseball, scouts and competitive swimming. In T-ball and machine pitch baseball he was known for his speed around the bases and a “long arm”. At age 7 he was the only one who could throw the ball from deep left field to the 2nd baseman. He enjoyed scouting for the social aspect and campouts. Greg was a leader on campouts, starting a tradition of hiking at night in our pack. And how he liked fast cars! He tinkered with cars he had, went to car rallies, and talked about making a race car himself.

Gregory had not yet found his niche in life, but was keenly interested in psychology, journalism, international affairs and philanthropy. He had a very empathetic spirit from a young age and was always trying to help others. He had an instinct for reading people and helped several class mates throughout school get counseling.

As a high school freshman, he was the youngest member of a group of students (most were seniors) who spent 6 weeks in Kirov, Russia as part of a State Department exchange program and still spoke Russian well. This experience led him to do some work as a freelance journalist when the opportunity arose. Most of his later writing covered the travesty in Hong Kong and he travelled there to see it firsthand. Greg was learning Mandarin Chinese in order to better cover the issues.

A visitation is scheduled for Friday, June 11th from 5pm until 9pm at Forest Park Lawndale Funeral Home. The funeral service will be on Saturday, June 12th at the Funeral Home at 10am. The graveside will follow at Forest Park Lawndale Cemetery at 11am. Services will be conducted by Pastor Rick Dubroc and Dr. Richard Hammonds. Following the graveside, a reception will be in the reception hall in the Funeral Home.

In lieu of flowers, the family requests donations to support mental health services in Greg’s memory. The GoFundMe page can be found at https://gofund.me/66189fde