Alexander Drew Mackin

  Alexander "Alex" Drew Mackin died at the age of 34, on  Memorial Day, 2021, in Sandpoint, Idaho. He was born in Austin, Texas on September 2, 1986. His parents Tom and Rhonda Mackin chose to move their young family to Wilderness Ranch, in East Boise County, Idaho and then into Idaho City, where Alex and his sister Lindsay grew up, attending Idaho City public schools, from Kindergarten through High School. Alex excelled at all sports, playing on football, soccer, basketball, and baseball teams, throughout his childhood and young adulthood. He was awarded the Conference Player of the Year, in football, his Senior year of high school. 

He loved to shoot, hunt, and fish, especially in the place he loved the most - North Idaho. He was also known for his intelligence, creativity, musical ability, wit, and entrepreneurial spirit. When describing Alex, his friends, family, and co-workers alike most often mention his sense of humor as being what they will remember most. 

His accomplishments were wide-ranging and far-reaching. In 2011, he was awarded the Best Undergraduate Poster, at the Montana Academy of Sciences, while attending University of Montana Western, as a Science major. The project was entitled “Geometric realization of (13,3) and (13,4) round robin tournaments.” 

Alex was truly a self-made man, honing his skills and developing his knowledge online, reading, watching YouTube videos, and auditing lectures. In 2013, he started his own Energy Transport company Black Horizon LLC, in Texas. He wrote everything from songs to commentary to novels.  He programmed video games, built everything from custom computers to guitar pedals, and drew up engineering plans for innumerable inventions. 

He wandered the United States, as a Jack of all trades, with the USFS, and in the North Dakota and Texas oil fields. He called home everything from a truck cab, RV, apartment, or cabin, to a hand built yurt to a tricked out blue van. He played his guitar in bars to break rooms to backyards to the CMA Festival in Nashville, all while making life-long friends at each step along his journey. 

After a long and exhausting battle with recurring mental illness and debilitating sleep deprivation, that journey came to an end in the woods that he loved, near friends whom he held dear.

Alex is survived by his parents Thomas Patrick Mackin and Rhonda Weinberger Mackin Jameson, sister Lindsay Kathleen Smith Mackin (Mitchell Smith) niece Paisley, aunts Risa Weinberger, Patrice Mackin Elmer and Diane Waits and cousins  Bobby and Julie Fisher and Catherine and Laura Waits. He is preceded in death by his grandparents Beth and Ervin Wenberger and Therese and Patrick Mackin, as well as his uncle Paul Mackin and cousin Andrew Waits.

Memorials for Alex have been occurring all over the country. A local Idaho City gathering is being planned for Labor Day weekend.