Tommy M. Thompson
Tommy M. Thompson passed away unexpectedly as a result of an accident on March 18, 2017, in Montpelier, Idaho.
Tommy was born in Randlett, Utah, on Dec. 5, 1946, to Gerald Marsh and Dora Beatrice (Miles) Thompson.
Tommy was preceded in death by his mother and father, his older sister Carolyn Whitman, and his beloved granddaughter Brittany Ann Thompson.
He is survived by his wife Marcy Ann, his son Tom Bradley (Jana), and grandson Devin Andrew Deutsch, his brothers Gary, Gene (Colleen), and Jerry (Liz), his sister Tawnee (Kevin) Darrington, and also numerous nieces and nephews.
Tommy spent his younger years in Mountain Home, Utah, and then traveled to Minnesota, Oregon, Idaho, and back to Utah, while his father worked various farms. Tommy started working on ranches in the Big Piney area of Wyoming in his early teens.
He met Marcy Whitman when he was 17, and they married on July 17, 1965. Their son Tom “Brad” Bradley was born a little over a year later, and Tommy continued to work on local ranches for a while longer, eventually taking a job as a millwright in Daniel at a sawmill. When the mill moved to Evanston, Tommy did not want to move his family, so he began driving trucks for Johnson Trucking and logging for Jerry Flugel and Paul Green.
In approximately 1971, he purchased the logging equipment from Paul Green and started his own logging business, Thompson Logging, and began logging for Dew Lumber Co. He operated Thompson Logging with his wife and son for 32 years. In the early years, due to the seasonal nature of the logging business, in the off-season, Tommy continued to work for Dew Lumber and also worked for Van Huffman building houses. With the decline in the availability of timber, and the gas and oil boom in the Pinedale area, Tommy sold his logging equipment and purchased a truck to haul condensate in the Jonah Field. When the oil and gas field work slowed down, Tommy was not quite ready to retire, so he began a new career of over-the-road hauling, which he really enjoyed.
Tommy had multiple hobbies throughout the years and gave 110 percent to every endeavor he tackled. His family was everything to him, and every hobby was enjoyed together. In the early years, they all enjoyed skiing and snow machining together, and Tommy and Brad spent hours exploring the mountains on their motorcycles. The family was passionate about shooting sporting clays, and Tommy and Marcy traveled extensively to shoot sporting clays all over the country. In the recent years, as he approached semi-retirement, he also rekindled his love of fishing, and they spent hours in their boat with family and friends. Tommy’s most recent endeavor was to learn the game of pool, and both he and Marcy loved spending hours playing the game with their son and daughter-in-law and with their friends at the senior center in Big Piney – the Southwest Sublette County Pioneers. They both played in a local pool league for the first time this year, and Tommy had played in the Wyoming State 8-Ball tournament just a couple days before his accident.
Memorial arrangements are pending, and in lieu of flowers, donations can be made to the Southwest Sublette County Pioneers, P.O. Box 33, Big Piney, WY 83113.
