Tommy Joe Kirby

Tommy Joe Kirby, 78, beloved husband, father, grandfather and servant of Jesus Christ, was received into God’s loving arms Monday, February 18, 2013, at a local care center suffering from chronic renal failure.

Funeral services will be at 1 p.m. Saturday at Walnut Creek Baptist Church in Reno. Committal and interment will be held the week of March 20 in Ruidoso, New Mexico. The family will receive friends 4 to 7 p.m. Friday at Biggers Funeral Home.

Tommy was born May 1, 1934, in Hagerman, New Mexico, to King Solomon Kirby and Nola Gertrude Burk Kirby. After serving as class valedictorian for Devol High School in Oklahoma, with a full-ride scholarship to the University of Oklahoma, he proudly enlisted in the U.S. Navy and was stationed on an aircraft carrier off the coast of Iceland. He achieved the rank of petty officer third class before his honorable discharge in 1955. On June 13, 1955, he married his beloved Dorothy Ann Manfredi in Jacksonville, Florida, and relocated to Fort Worth. They moved to their much-loved Ruidoso, New Mexico, in 1958. In 1965, they returned to Fort Worth where Tommy worked at General Dynamics in the test lab on the F-111 program and later at Stratoflex overseeing testing and quality assurance operations. He retired as a deputy with Tarrant County Sheriff’s Department. Tommy also served as a deacon at Bethel, Normandale and Walnut Creek Baptist churches.

We will miss you, but rejoice that you are now with our God and Savior. See you and Mom/Granny one day soon.

Special thanks to his doctors, the staff at Azle Manor and Biggers for their loving care.

He was preceded in death by his wife of 51 years, Dorothy Manfredi Kirby.

He is survived by his sons, Joseph, Mark and Stephen Kirby; daughter, Susan Kirby Krebs; daughter-in-law, Susie Kirby; granddaughters, Kristin Kirby Hendricks, Elizabeth and Mia Kirby, Julie, Rachel, and Emily Krebs; grandsons, Nicholas, Austin and Morgan Kirby; and grandson-in-law, Brent Hendricks.