Jan. 16, 2003 – John Buchanan Gibney died Tuesday night at his Hawksnest Bay, St. John, home. He was 48.
He is survived by his wife, Teri Starr Gibney, and five sons — Thomas Buchanan, John Buchanan Jr., Adam Taylor, David Andres and Gustavo Emilio. Additional survivors include his sister, Eleanor; his brother, Edward, three nephews and a niece.
Burial arrangements are pending. A memorial service will be held from 4 p.m. to sunset Sunday at Hawksnest Beach in the V.I. National Park.
Gibney was born on St. Thomas to parents who moved to Hawksnest Bay in the late 1940s from New York. They were among the first in a wave of transplants from the mainland who chose to make St. John their home.
He attended Julius E. Sprauve School and Antilles School, his attorney and friend J. Brion Morrisette said.
An unconventional man with a strapping physique, flowing hair and tattered clothes, Gibney was known across St. John and beyond.
"He was a wonderful free soul who burned the candle at both ends," long-time friend Fran Attard said. "Wherever he is, he's raising hell," she said, adding that any outing with Gibney was an adventure.
As news of his death made the rounds on St. John, Gibney's zest for life was always mentioned first in people's reactions. "I laughed so hard at his total recklessness," said one friend who didn't want his name used.
Gibney was best known as a farmer and horticulturist whose plants grew in profusion at his Hawksnest Bay farm. However, Morrisette noted that Gibney often gave away what he grew.
"You can't talk about John without talking about his generosity," Morrisette said adding that Gibney often told people to help themselves to what they needed.
His horsemanship was renowned, and Attard said the first time she saw Gibney, he was riding in the surf at Hawksnest Beach.
His friends said he was much more than a farmer. "He was one of the most intelligent and widely read people I know," Morrisette said, recalling that Gibney could quote equally well from the Bible, works of great philosophers and lyrics of obscure songs.
He traveled as a missionary up and down the Caribbean chain, lived for a time in Argentina, and spoke fluent Spanish as well as passing German and French.
Gibney also was a storyteller, Morrisette said, and in fact could tell a story better than anyone else the lawyer knows. "He had a great sense of humor," Morrisette said.
While Gibney was happiest working the land and the sea, Morrisette said, he could shift gears to mix and mingle comfortably with rich and poor, black and white.
St. John publisher June Bell, also a friend of Gibney's, remembers him as a laughing, happy child. "I think he knew he was different," she said.
