Malcolm R. Thomas Jr.

Malcolm was born on October 21st, 1943, to Malcolm Thomas, Sr. and Claudia Darlene in Tallahassee, Florida, a place that the Army Air Corp had chosen as one of many encampments. The hospital nurses immediately gave him the nickname, “Butch” because he was the largest baby in the hospital. He has been Butch to almost all of his close friends and family members ever since. As soon as his dad came home from his latest military escapade, he found out that Darlene had named him Rufus Malcolm.

Malcolm was furious! For reasons that are not politically correct, his daddy refused to acknowledge his first name. When Butch joined the service, he formally changed the way he wrote his name. Butch went from school to school. Sometimes, he would change locations three times in one year. It was this experience of travel, wonderment, adventure, entertainment, and of large, boisterous crowds that shaped the way that Butch approached the world for the rest of his life.

Whenever he moved to a new school, Malcolm would ask the students to find him the “baddy-est bads”. After he beat them up, no one else would bother him. Yes, he was a rebel. It was during those times attending new schools, that he gained a passion that brought many great stories and great memories, and the tradition that she passed down to his only son, Rodney Lynn Thomas (now deceased).

The family settled down in DeKalb, TX. When Butch was in his junior year of high school, he played “Man on Center.” Butch has a younger sister, Glanda Kay, and a 10-year younger brother, David Michael.

He wanted to drop out of school in the 11th grade and get a GED. His daddy told him that he would not allow it. He told him about the National Guard and Daddy took that option, allowing him to start the summer before his senior year and then continue after graduation. He loved it! He got to line the Jeeps up while driving around the Commander. When John Niland came to Daddy’s post, the commander asked Malcolm to teach him. He told him that he knew Malcolm would not treat him with preferential treatment. That was one of Dad’s greatest compliments (from his perspective). Yes, he really was an honest man.

Malcolm and Evelyn were married on the 21st day of December 1963. As he told everyone, that would be the only day of the month that he could never forget; you see, his birthday was also on the 21st. He and Evelyn did not have children right away. They both wanted to wait until they knew it was going to work before they brought others into the picture. Rodney Lynn was born on February 13, 1967, and Tammy Cherie’ came on November 3, 1969.

Malcolm devoted himself to his children and Evelyn and became a master at finding ways to keep them entertained on a budget, all while exposing them to different things. The zoo, the beach, the Miller Outdoor Theatre, the library, the museums, the parks were all free. The drive-in movie theatre cost a dollar a carload, and he would bring homemade popcorn and a pitcher of Coke so that the entire cost was $2.00. It was never enough that he had two kids of his own to bring. He would load up the car with neighborhood kids and friends of his kids and the occasional dog. He loved Carla (named after the infamous Hurricane Carla). She got to go everywhere, even though Evelyn disliked the smell of dogs.

He loved the outdoors. He was involved in Royal Rangers and could often be found camping and fishing while being a father figure to everyone else’s children. Daddy was not perfect; he was perfect to me. Family vacations mostly involved a tent, a campfire, and nature. Decades later, these memories of camping trips to Disney World and Disney Land and beach outings and spending time with his children still brought him immense joy, and he would bring them up often. He loved having a small family and as his children grew up and married and had children of their own, he taught them to love God first and then family, dogs, motorcycles the great outdoors.

Butch loved leather tooling and was very creative. He hand-crafted belts, wallets, purses, and whatever he could find. He never met a stranger, and he spent his entire life GIVING. He gave his time to anyone who would listen to his stories.

He loved to make people happy. He volunteered at church as the usher to indulge his insatiable need for talking to people. He drove mother crazy. As a Shriner, he went to children’s hospitals and made them laugh. He always rooted for the underdog in any situation; especially, politics.

Malcolm attended and celebrated every milestone of his family. You see, his daddy brought him up to be honest and hard-working. A paper route was his first job. His dad bought him a Vespa and Daddy saved his money to pay him back. It was several hundred dollars. One day, Daddy drove his new car home (a piece of junk) and his mother told him to wait until his dad got home from work, as he was in trouble. He told his dad that he saved all his paper route money to buy a car $40, and he could fix it.

For months, his father came home from work, ate dinner, and ”the boys” worked on his 43 Plymouth. He cleaned every piece as he removed it from the car. His dad told him how it worked and made him label the parts. When all the parts were removed, his dad told him to go to the salvage yard and sell them. The junkyard owner told him that those were the cleanest parts he had ever seen. In turn, he doubled his money and was able to buy another car.

He attended a Baptist church when he was 11 because that was the only time his dad would let him drive the car. He has liked girls ever since.

Malcolm was kind and generous and his sense of style matched his outgoing personality. Being left-handed, he was always turning in the wrong direction. His 2nd-grade teacher tried to force him to use scissors with his right hand. His dad set the teacher straight, as daddy did for me when I was in the 2nd grade.

He leaves behind his only daughter, Tammy Thomas-Fugate. Rodney Lynn died in 2000 and Evelyn died in 2013. He leaves behind 6 grandchildren: Stephen Knapp; Christina Stewart, Morgan Fugate, Natalie Thomas, and Ashley Gocher. He will be sorely missed.