Thomas Newton Terry III. born June 23, 1944 to Thomas Newton Terry and Dorothy Marie Terry (Cornutt), went home to be with our Lord, December 27, 2020. He was 76.

A funeral service is scheduled at 2:30 PM Wednesday, December 30, 2020 at Oak Grove Fellowship in Bullard Texas.  Mike Blumn will officiate. Tom will be laid to rest at Bullard Memorial Cemetery., next to his beloved father. Visitation will be held prior to service.

Thomas Terry III was born into a pipeline family originally from Texas but one moving about many states from Massachusetts to Colorado as his father worked as a heavy equipment operator on pipeline construction.

Tom and his brother, Douglas E.  Terry, grew up moving from place to place with their father’s work on pipelines. They were forced to attend different schools along the way, with Tom attending 12 or 13 by the end of his public schooling. Every Christmas the family headed back to Texas to spend time with relatives, a practice that the kids and their mother continued virtually every summer, stopping in Ft. Worth at her father’s hotel and visiting relatives in Abilene and elsewhere. The family considered themselves Texans at heart with a long line of progenitors living in the state.

Tom’s father had dreamed of the stability of ranching and farming, eventually buying  a 240 acre farm outside Bennington, Oklahoma, where they lived for five years before finances sent him back to pipeline work in Pennsylvania. It was there, in high school, that Tom met his future bride, Barbara Lee (_Kemp) in 1962 and they married just after her graduation.

Living in Pennsylvania and following his father into pipeline work, they started a family and Tom began an added career as a weekend race car driver, building his own cars from the frame up. He pursued that line, racing, for about 20 years and was a well-known, popular driver/builder at a local racetrack, Grandview.

Tom worked on pipelines , starting as ordinary labor, moving up to heavy equipment operator and eventually becoming superintendent/manager. After his mother Marie Guice (Cornutt) passed away in Jacksonville, Texas, Tom and Barbara used part of the inheritance from his mother to purchase 5 acres in Cherokee County Texas, where they eventually built their first Texas home. With financial assistance from his father, they built their first Texas house on that land.

Tom and Barbara donated land and were two of the founders of Oak Grove Bible Church and Tom became the pastor of the church for 16 years, located just down the road from their house.

Along with many churches during his pipeline work they attended First Baptist Church of Bullard, Oak Grove Bible Church, The Gospel Barn, Church Under the Bridge, Grace Fellowship, and his final church where he taught the men’s Bible study at J bar C Cowboy Church.

Tom was a Christian who often said, “ A man is no fool to give what he can’t keep and to gain what he can’t lose.” (Salvation in Jesus)

Tom also officiated at many marriages, including his grandchildren and his son. Tom was a true Christian and spread the word of God to all he met. Tom loved his brothers in Christ after leaving the ministry meeting weekly at Bullard’s Taco L Conquistador restaurant to study the Bible and mentor with Billy Bateman.

Romans 1:16

This man is truly as he said many times, “ absent from the body, present with the Lord.”

Tom was preceded in death by his parents, Thomas N. Terry II and Dorothy Marie Cornutt. His brother, Robert Stephen Terry, died of birth complications at the age of eight, and grandson Michael Alvin Bell.

Left to cherish in his memory is his beloved wife Barbara Lee (Kemp) Terry of Bullard, Texas, son Thomas N. Terry IV of Bullard and daughter Tracy Lynn Cooper of Bullard and brother Douglas E. Terry of the Washington, DC, area. Grandchildren; Thomas N. Terry V., Melissa Bell, Robert Chapman, Ashley Ott, Barbara Bell. Niece; Britt Terry and many more nieces and nephews on Barbara’s side.

Pallbearers will be, Thomas Terry IV, Thomas Terry V, Robert Chapman, Robert Bell, Thomas Terry VI, and Billy Bateman.

Family request that any donations to be made in the memory of Thomas Terry III., to:

J Bar C Cowboy Church
FM 855
Mount Selmon, Texas.