U.O. ‘Tommy’ Thomasson Jr.

BELLEVILLE ? Services for U.O. “Tommy” Thomasson Jr., 73, Belleville, will be at 11 a.m. today at St. Edward’s Catholic Church in Belleville. Private family inurnment will be in Resurrection Cemetery in Springfield, Mo.

Mr. Thomasson died Friday, Nov. 5, 2004, at Salina Regional Health Center.

He was born Dec. 27, 1930, in Leechville, Ark., the son of U.O. and Lola Mae Stotts Thomasson. He graduated from Wyandotte High School and Kansas City Kansas Community College. He attended Southern Police Institute at the University of Louisville in Kentucky.

Mr. Thomasson served in the U.S. Navy. He was a Kansas Highway Patrol trooper from 1955 to 1988 and retired as captain.

He was a member of the church, Robert E. Gordon American Legion Post No. 193 in Belleville and Moose Lodge of Concordia and was a fourth-degree Knights of Columbus member.

He married Mary Jane Armstrong in 1956. She died in 1980. He married Helen F. Blanchat Tarkowski in 1991. She survives, of the home.

Other survivors include a daughter, Callie Jane Thomasson, Garden City; three sons, Andrew O., Wellsville, Timothy L., Lawrence, and James Matthew, Chanute; three stepdaughters, Lora Martin and Paula Jeardoe, both of Belleville, and Cathy Grant, Wichita; a stepson, Jon Tarkowski, Wichita; a brother, Jerry, Littleton, Colo.; a grandchild; 23 stepgrandchildren; and six stepgreat-grandchildren.

The family suggests memorials to the church.

Bachelor-Faulkner-Dart-Surber Chapel in Belleville is in charge of arrangements.