Zachary L. Shackelford

Zachary Lawrence Shackelford passed away unexpectedly on the morning of November 6, 2022 while traveling in Kentucky. He was only 27 years of age.

Zachary is survived by his loving parents Willard (Trey) Henry Shackelford III and Starlynn Marie Shackelford of Woodbine, MD, his four siblings Colin Henry Shackelford, Julia Marie Shackelford (Wolinski), Andrew Joseph Shackelford, and Trinity Star Shackelford. Zachary is also survived by his grandfather Willard (Skip) Henry Shackelford Jr, grandmother Linda Carol Shackelford, grandmother Maria Teresa Ornelas, great-grandmother Blanche Spangler and great-grandmother Hortensia Ornelas as well as a myriad of aunts, uncles, and cousins that adored and loved him very much.

Zach’s young life started when he was born in Odessa, Ukraine on August 11, 1995. He lived with his two older siblings (Colin and Julia) and his younger sibling (Andrew) until a series of unfortunate events led them into the orphanage system in Odessa, Ukraine. While in the orphanage, Zach and his sister, Julia, participated in a cultural and travel program operated by a United States non-profit organization called Frontier Horizon. Their host family for the Summer of 2004 was a young volunteer American couple, Trey and Star Shackelford.  At the young age of 8 yrs old, Zach first stepped foot onto American soil and experienced many firsts in life. That same Summer, his host family fell in love with him and his sister, discovered they had more siblings in the orphanage system, and that they were all available to be adopted. Without hesitation, Trey and Star immediately began the process of his international adoption and successfully brought Zach and his three siblings forever home in January of 2005. Zach was 9 years old when he was adopted. Three years later, Zach found out he was going to be a big brother and was present with his mom and dad when his baby sister, Trinity, came home from the hospital.

From day one, Zach had always been the perpetual athlete and hilarious prankster of all his siblings. If he wasn’t throwing or kicking a ball of some kind of every waking moment, he was most certainly making his family all laugh with his hilarious and well-timed sense of humor. Zach also possessed a keen sharp intellect that often had him in the top of his class in all of his years of education. But when it came to his passion of athletics, Zach was a fierce competitor no matter what sport he was participating in. Zach loved and excelled in the sports of baseball, soccer, football, lacrosse, and wrestling. Wrestling was the sport Zach found a profound passion in where he was naturally gifted in at a later age in high school and made the 2A Maryland State Wrestling Championship tournament two straight years. As Zach became older, his love for nature became more important and apparent to him. On often occasions, Zach could be found hiking many of our local and national parks trails or simply observing nature whenever and where ever he could get the chance to observe such things. Out of Zach’s many passions, his most beloved passion was of his four siblings. He adored each of his beloved siblings with intense unconditional love and could always be found encouraging any one of them if not all of them to not ever sit on a couch and get outside and throw a football, play basketball, play tennis, or kick a soccer ball, or go hiking , just as long as they were being active and being active together.

After Zach graduated from Glenelg High School in Glenelg, MD in the Spring of 2014, he enlisted into the United States Marine Corps. Zach was immediately recognized for his high intelligence and successfully trained to be an Aircraft Avionics Technician where he worked within the Yuma, Arizona Harrier Airwing called the Tomcats. Zach spent most of his five plus years deployed to different locations around the world with his airwing like Japan, Europe , Austrailia, and Canada. His final deployment was in Bahrain where he served as his wing’s lead harrier electrical specialist as well as weapons payload engineer for mission work. In December of 2019, Zach earned an Honorable Discharge from the United States Marine Corps with the rank of Sergeant. During his service, he was awarded with the Navy Meritorious Unit Commendation, Marine Corps Good Conduct Medal, National Defense Service Medal, Global War on Terrorism Expeditionary Medal (Bahrain), Global War on Terrorism Service Medal, sea service deployment ribbons, and expert qualification badges.  After his military service, Zach put himself through technical school and graduated as a tower technician engineer in the telecommunications industry.  Zach enjoyed working out, hiking, and country western classics.

The family of Zachary Lawrence Shackelford will be available for visitation at Harry H. Witzke’s Family Funeral Home in Ellicott City, Maryland on December 8th between 6 to 8 pm. A Memorial Service honoring the life of Zachary Lawrence Shackelford will be held at the Lisbon United Methodist Church on December 9 at 8:30am. A military honors burial will be performed after the service on December 9th at 11:00 a.m. at the Baltimore National Veterans Cemetery. 

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