Musical memorial for 'Rayzor' DeAngelicas scheduled Friday night

The Craigslist post says, "Come One Come All and Play Your Respects to Honor One of Sarasota's Finest Pickers 'n' Grinners: Ray 'Rayzor' DeArcangelis." (Link goes to HeraldTribune.com article - April 2005)

Date: Friday, Feb. 26
Time: 7 to 10 p.m.
Location: Price Plantation, 10687 Fruitville Road, Sarasota

We already wrote about "Rayzor" DeArcangelis's death last week in a motorcycle accident.

"Bongo Dave" Hurt, one of DeArcangelis's old music buddies, says Friday night's tribute "will be a celebration instead of a downer" because Ray "was always a celebratory person."

DeArcangelis's former girlfriend and music partner Marylee Bussard, who now lives in Chicago, is flying here for the celebration.

At the time of his death, DeArcangelis was engaged to Cardinal Mooney High School French teacher Shania Buckles. They had planned to marry later this year at the Price Plantation, then vacation in Tanzania, where Buckles says she has friends from previous visits who had never met DeArcangelis. They held a Catholic Mass for "Brother in Law Ray."

DeArcangelis is also mourned by Cardinal Mooney students and teachers. He was a regular chaperone there for both dances and field trips and, Buckles says, "a highlight of our Christmas parties."

Buckles says that besides being a musician, a traveler and both an advocate and practioner of a simple, sustainable lifestyle, DeArcangelis wrote a novel and "many short stories."

Copies of some of DeArcangelis's short stories will be on sale at Friday's memorial event, "probably for about a dollar," Buckles says.

Proceeds will go to community radio station WSLR and the Humane Society of Sarasota. (Besides loving and caring for the many humans he met in his travels, Buckles says DeArcangelis also loved animals.)

"He was a true rennaisance man," she says, a sentiment echoed by everyone we've met who met Ray 'Rayzor' DeArcangelicas before his life came to a tragic end at the young age of 44.