Bobby Dean Thompson

Bobby Dean Thompson November 26, 1932 Galveston, Texas – September 4, 2024 Klein, Texas Resident of Klein, Texas 54 years Wife: Patricia Ann Rather Thompson Sons: Troy Dean Thompson, Byron Boyd Thompson, Mark Beryl Thompson Grandchildren: Lauren Grey Ali, Morgan Taylor Grey, Benjamin Hallford Thompson, Brooke Adddison Thompson Great Grandchildren: Ellianna Marie Ali, Elijah Ali Precededed in death: Mother: Ruby Ona Hallford Father: Keelon Busby Thompson Sisters: Darnell Thompson Grymes, Laverne Thompson Johnson Brother: Barney Boyd Thompson The Circuitous Educational Path of Bobby Dean Thompson Bobby D. dropped out of Galveston’s Ball High School in 1949 to learn from the proverbial School of Life. He immediately joined the Merchant Marines and served for one year, during which he learned some lessons and acquired lifetime memories, two of which involved Hamburg, Germany, and Calcutta, India. The World War II devastation of Hamburg was a startling sight for a seventeen-year-old and has remained vivid through the years: brick and concrete multi-story buildings blown to rubble like Godzilla’s rampage through a movie village. In Calcutta, the sight, sounds, and smells of abject poverty shocked his senses: masses of people lived and slept in the streets and dead bodies floated in the Hugli River, a tributary of the Ganges, that rose eighteen to twenty feet in two hours and dropped just as fast. Bobby D. left the Merchant Marines and stayed in Galveston, working as an electrician apprentice for one year, then joined the U.S. Navy for the Korean war. He served two years in Hawaii and two years aboard the Colonial LSD 18. He received an honorable discharge from the Navy in November 1956 and returned to Galveston to work in the Falstaff brewery and on the docks for one and a half years. During that time, Mr. Future began to argue with him and Bobby D. lost every argument. He knew that he better get back onto the education track. Family and friends, listening to his plan to go to college under the GI Plan and get a degree, threw out the needed challenge: “You’ll never make it. You’ll be back in six weeks.” His response was, “No, I won’t be back.” In September 1958, he arrived in Huntsville, Texas, and rented a house on the Hill with Clifford Wahlstein and Jack Bennett of Galveston and Roe McPherson of Houston Heights. The same week, he enrolled at Sam Houston State Teachers’ College—the Harvard of East Texas. To the credit of the Galveston public schools that he had attended, Bobby D. took the required placement exams for English and math and entered the regular college program. At mid-term he was inducted into Kappa Alpha fraternity, moved into the KA house and became an active member. He first served as Parliamentarian and later was elected President of the Inter-Fraternal Council that controlled all campus fraternities. Four years later, in 1962, Bobby D. graduated in the upper quarter of his class with a Bachelor of Science degree in Graphic Arts and a minor in Advanced Arts. He settled in Houston; established his own printing company for twenty-five years; and became an involved family man, active in his community civic organizations and for twenty years coached baseball and football Little League teams for his three sons. For most of us, education was a straight, unwavering track: We entered and progressed through elementary and secondary public schools, then, perhaps, went on to college before entering the work force full time. However, it is good for us to know and for our children and grandchildren to learn that goals can be achieved by taking different paths. Education is the great facilitator for achieving goals, and in the USA the educational opportunity knocks repeatedly, urging anyone to open the door. Bobby D. Thompson serves as a model for one who sailed along wavering, criss-cross paths, heard the knock, opened the door, and walked through.

Bobby Dean Thompson

November 26, 1932 - September 4, 2024