Glen E. Buxton, 49, of Clarion, died Sunday, October 19, 1997 at North Iowa Mercy Medical Center in Mason City. Buxton was well known in rock music circles as lead guitar for Alice Cooper. Buxton was born November 10, 1947 at Akron, Ohio, the son of Thomas J. and Geraldine E. Carlson Buxton. At the age of 14, the family moved to Phoenix, Arizona where he graduated from high school and attended college.  

   He began his music career in 1964 with a group formed as "Earwigs". Later they changed their name to "The   Nazz" and in the late 60's to "Alice Cooper" The group broke up in 1974 and Buxton formed a group in Phoenix called "Virgin". He was lead guitarist with all the groups.  In 1990, Buxton moved to Iowa to help his friend, John Stevenson, farm. He was later with Buxton-Flynn in Minnesota.  

MASON CITY-Glen E. Buxton, lead guitarist for the famed '70s shock-rock band Alice Cooper, died early Sunday morning at North Iowa Mercy Health Center. Buxton, 49, had lived the last few years at Clarion. He died of natural causes, according to Dr. Steven Goetz, Cerro Gordo County medical examiner, who conducted an autopsy at the family's request Sunday afternoon.  

   Buxton's brother, Ken, of Glendale, Ariz., said his brother had been suffering from pneumonia, and was taken to the hospital late Saturday night or early Sunday morning. "We got a call early in the morning that his heart had stopped but that they had revived him. Later, we got a call that he had passed away, he said.  

   Buxton played lead guitar for Alice Cooper, a five member band that formed in Phoenix in the mid-1960s and had its greatest fame in the early 1970s. It featured simulated executions, the chopping up of baby dolls leader Vincent Furnier draping a live boa constrictor around himself. 

   "Glen never liked Phoenix," his brother said. "In about 1988 or 1989, a friend of his who had a farm in Clarion said he needed some temporary help and asked Glen if he would come. Glen went up there and never came back."  

   He was not particularly close to his family in Arizona, Ken Buxton said. "I talked to him last Thanksgiving and I think the last time I saw him was about four years ago He was closer to my mother than any of the rest  of us. He and I just didn't have a whole lot in common," he said.  

   The family will be coming to Iowa for the funeral services which are tentatively being planned for Friday, Ken Buxton said. The Willim Funeral Home in Clarion is in charge of arrangements. 

CLARION-Glen E. Buxton, the former lead guitarist for the band Alice Cooper, was remembered as a  talented musician as well as a good friend and neighbor during funeral services Friday in Clarion.  About 175 people crammed into Willim Funeral Home on Main Street in Clarion to pay their last respects to Buxton, who was the guitar front man for Alice Cooper from the late 1960s to 1974 as the group turned out a host of hits such as "School's Out." Former Alice Cooper band members Neal Smith, Michael Bruce and Dennis Dunaway were among the mourners. 

   Buxton died of pneumonia on Oct. 19. He had moved to Clarion in 1990 to help a friend, John Stevenson, run a farm. Photographs and other memorabilia from Buxton's musical career were displayed in the funeral home. Among the artifacts were a black guitar and a platinum record Buxton received when the album "Alice Cooper's Greatest Hits" sold one million copies. 

   The mourners stood and gave Buxton a final standing ovation as the battleship gray casket was wheeled into   the funeral home's main room. "He was number one in our lives," said Reggie Vincent, a fellow musician who had known Buxton for 28 years. 

   "He was also a little different," Vincent said. "If there were ten people standing in line, you'd pick Glen out.  He was different, he stood out. But that's not a bad thing. During his remarks at the funeral Vincent described Buxton as "a great guitarist and a great friend." "We loved him," he said. "We miss him." 

   The Rev. Pat Nemmers of Holmes Baptist Church in Holmes said that when he learned Buxton lived in town the first thing that crossed his mind was an article he read in which the guitarist was described as "the most shocking and irreverent of his time."  

   "Having reached the top of the rock world, Glen found he needed a rock higher than that," Nemmers said.  "There is a higher rock. Glen I'm here to tell you, found that rock. That rock is the Lord Jesus Christ." Buxton's long hair and sometimes unkempt appearance didn't create a stir among the congregation, according to Nemmers. 

"He was just accepted for who he was," he said. At the conclusion of the service the strains of Led Zeppelin's "Stairway to Heaven" filled the funeral home as the mourners filed out. 

Buxton was laid to rest in Evergreen Cemetery in Clarion. Although Buxton may have had an outrageous stage persona, people in Clarion who knew the guitarist recalled him as a friendly fellow who liked photography and gave a few guitar lessons to local folks. "I really liked Glen, said George Lehman, a Clarion resident who attended Holmes Baptist Church with Buxton. "I thought a lot of him," Lehman said.  "He was a special friend. He really appreciated me and all his friends. Lehman said he listened to Alice Cooper music, but never dreamed he would befriend a member of the band. Barb Detmer of Clarion said kind and eccentric are the first words that come to mind as she remembers Buxton. She said she was also impressed by his eagerness to learn about the Bible and Christianity.