Billy Joe Thomas

Billy Joe Thomas, 62, of Stamford, passed away on Sunday, August 3, 2014 at a Haskell hospital. Funeral services will be at 2 p.m. Saturday at the First Baptist Church in Haskell with Rev. Ernest Flanders Jr. officiating. Burial will follow at the Highland Memorial Cemetery in Stamford under the direction of Tankersley Funeral Home.
Billy Joe Thomas was born August 15, 1951 in Stamford to Oscar and Lavada Thomas. He was raised in the area and graduated Stamford High School in 1970. After graduation from high school he went to Texas State Technical Institute in Sweetwater to study paint and body repair. After graduation from there he moved to Houston in 1973. Billy met and later married Joyce Reagins in 1974 in Benjamin, Texas. To this union three sons were born. They moved to Houston and Billy obtained a job at NASA working as a parts inspector. He worked at NASA from 1974 until his retirement in 2011 and then moved back to Stamford in 2012.
Survivors include his wife, Joyce Thomas of Stamford, three sons, Billy Ray Thomas and wife Catherine of Lockhart, Texas, Patrick Dewayne Thomas of Houston, Texas and Steven Kyle Thomas and wife April of Pearland, Texas, 2 grandchildren, Terrell and Asya Thomas, his mother, Lavada Thomas of Hamlin, 2 brothers, Benny Thomas and wife Judy of Stamford, and Charles Thomas and wife Mary of Albuquerque, New Mexico, 3 sisters, Clara Faye Thompson and husband Al and Minnie Lou Daniels and husband William, both of Houston and Gwenda Marie Hooper and friend Kary Baker of Victorville, California, and a host of nieces, nephews, and friends.
Billy was preceded in death by his father and 2 sisters, Lillie Bell Thomas and Verna Hill.