There have been times when it looked like the Budewig name would be extinguished along with the flames that firefighter Gary Budewig has fought for nearly 23 years.
But thanks to his fellow firefighters at Houston's Fire Station No. 76 at 7200 Cook Road who nominated him as the namesake of the Alief Independent School District's new campus -- and to the district's administrators who agreed with them -- the name will last for generations to come.
It has been chiseled in stone on the front of Gary P. Budewig Intermediate School, a $12.5 million, 115,849-square-foot school for gifted and talented fifth- and sixth-graders on Richmond at Dairy Ashford.
"It's overwhelming and it's still difficult to comprehend that somebody thought enough of me to name a school after me," said Budewig, 45, a 1976 Alief Hastings High School graduate.
Shortly after their high school graduations, Budewig and his brother, Scott Budewig, chose to become firefighters. They were only one class apart at Houston's firefighting academy before Gary landed his first job at Fire Station No. 1 in downtown Houston.
Gary Budewig has been at No. 76 since 1985, fighting "every kind of fire there is," while his brother has done the same thing at Fire Station No. 75 on Dairy Ashford, a stone's throw from the Budewig school, scheduled to open Aug. 14.
"With fighting fires, there's always something different," Budewig said.
Members of the Budewig family are all products of Alief schools, including the Budewig brothers' father, Raymond Budewig, who attended schools in Alief until the 10th grade. Since that was the highest grade available in the Alief school district at the time, the senior Budewig had to transfer to Missouri City to graduate from high school.
Gary Budewig's mother, Shirley Mahanay Budewig, is the daughter of Viola Mahanay, one of the Alief school district's first custodians and namesake of its Mahanay Elementary School. Both of his parents and his grandmother, now 95, still live in the Alief community about a half mile from one another, Budewig said.
Before their graduations from Hastings, Budewig's son and daughter went to the same primary Alief schools that Gary had attended -- Youens Elementary and Alief Middle schools -- which he then re-attended as a parent volunteer.
"I started as a parent volunteer at Youens. I cut, pasted, mimeographed, doing a little bit of everything, making sure the teacher got supplies, what they needed," Budewig said.
Within a year, he was the parent volunteer coordinator.
Helping in the classrooms on his off-duty days -- when he didn't have 24-hour shifts -- was exhausting.
"There were times when I was so tired, especially after a bad day at the fire station," Budewig said.
In a normal month, the station's average of nine runs a day usually included the most common emergencies for the station's 10 firefighters and emergency medical service personnel -- those at houses and apartments.
"I sometimes say that I wouldn't have a job if it weren't for stupidity and accidents," Budewig said.
Still, he continued to be a parent volunteer in the schools and to take his children and others on camping excursions as a leader of Alief's Campfire Boys and Girls. As his children got older, his volunteerism changed to assisting the ROTC and drama department productions.
Budewig's daughter, Deana, graduated from Hastings last year. Now 19, she is studying to be a veterinary paramedic in a specialized course at Houston Community College.
His son, Dennis, graduated from Hastings in 2000 and joined the Marines. He was with the Marines in Australia on Sept. 11, 2001, when his unit became one of the first to be sent to Afghanistan in the first wave of the fighting. Dennis survived it all and returned home again, but died last year in a motorcycle wreck at the age of 19.
In addition to Budewig Intermediate's three computer labs, over-sized gymnasium and two-story rotunda with a glass wall that allows visitors to see straight into the school's central library, the new school will feature a portrait of Gary Budewig in the entrance hall.
While all the new school's programs have not been set in stone yet, Budewig Intermediate's principal, Ann Malone, said there's one annual event the school will observe.
"Sept. 24 will be our annual Gary Budewig Day," Malone said.
Budewig said he would be willing to volunteer at the school, if Malone or the school's parent volunteer group ask for assistance. After all, he said, he has a vested interest in the school that bears his name.
"This is a beautiful school, and this school will carry on the name my parents gave me," he said.
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