Scott Busby Obituary

Scott Busby attended Sherwood High School in Sandy Spring, MD. View the obituary, post a memory, or share a photo about Scott Busby.

Graduation Year	Class of 1969
Date of Passing	Oct 18, 2024
About	Scott Busby (1951-2024) - Obituary written by Mark McDonald Scott Busby, our former student government president at Sherwood High School, passed away in October 2024, at his home in Santa Monica, California. Scott had been receiving treatment for prostate cancer for several years. Scott was born in Austin, Texas, and came to Sherwood in the 10th grade when his family relocated from Texas so his father, Horace Busby, could work on a daily basis at the White House. Mr. Busby was a longtime friend of President Lyndon Johnson and began serving as an adviser and speechwriter to Johnson in Texas in 1948. He later wrote many of the speeches that promoted Johnson’s Great Society platform, along with the stunning 1968 TV address in which the president announced he would not seek reelection. Coming across a long-lost manuscript of his father’s in 2003 --- a close-up political biography of LBJ --- Scott edited and completed the book in 2005. ‘The Thirty-First of March’ was published the following year by Farrar, Straus and Giroux, and Scott wrote a preface to the book. He also collected and curated his father’s papers, which were donated to the Briscoe Center for American History at the University of Texas. Scott played junior varsity basketball at Sherwood and was active in various SHS organizations. After graduating in 1969, he got his BA in journalism at U.T. Austin, and later worked for several years in the university system there. He moved to Los Angeles in 1979 to pursue a career in screenwriting and public relations, meanwhile working in the archives of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Four of Scott's screenplays were made into films: The Rainbow Warrior (1993, with Jon Voight and Sam Neill); The Escape (1997, with Patrick Dempsey); From China With Love (1998, with Jürgen Prochnow); and Texas Rangers (2001, with Ashton Kutcher). Scott continued to write scripts and treatments for film and television but turned to public relations for a more predictable income stream: In 2005 he started a PR and marketing company in Los Angeles --- The Busby Group, which Scott liked to call a ‘boutique’ agency --- and they eventually specialized in the launching and promotion of new authors. https://www.thebusbygroup.com/ . Scott’s first two marriages ended in divorce. He is survived by his wife, Jane Qu Busby, a real estate developer in Los Angeles, Montreal and Kunming, China, and by his sister Leslie and her daughter Ellie, both of Paciano, Italy. Another sister, Betsy Busby, of Austin, preceded him in death. Memorial services are being planned for early 2025 in Los Angeles and Austin.