Michael (Mike) Roy Thomas was born August 12, 1944, to Roy and Florene Thomas and passed away April 14, 2026, surrounded by family. Mike was born in Bridgeport, TX and raised in De Leon, TX. His success on the gridiron for the Bearcats led to a football scholarship at Baylor University where he was a three-year letterman for the Bears. While still playing football, he began classes at Baylor Law School and was proud to have taken a law school final and played a football game on the same day.<\/p>\n
It was at Baylor where Mike met the love of his life, Patsy Watson. Upon graduation from law school, Mike and Patsy moved to Fort Worth where he went to work for the Tarrant County District Attorney. He then opened his own office and built his career as a sole practitioner for over 30 years specializing in criminal defense. In 2002, he took another step in his career by being elected a State District Judge, a position he held until his retirement in 2022.<\/p>\n
While Mike experienced success in all facets of life, he was most proud of his family. Mike and Patsy raised three kids in a welcoming home where their many friends made sure the house was always bustling with activity. They always had an open door for anyone who might stop by.<\/p>\n
Mike loved to travel and was fortunate to visit many destinations around the world, including getting to play many of the greatest golf courses. His favorite destination was Crested Butte where, the entire family spent countless trips enjoying the outdoors.<\/p>\n
An avid sports fan, he loved watching sports of all types. He never missed a game any of his children played, including coaching many of their teams. In later years, his greatest joy was watching his grandchildren compete by either attending in person or streaming online.<\/p>\n
Mike had a charitable heart displayed by his pro-bono legal work, service to dozens of charities, and serving on many boards. He was a member of Colonial Country Club for over 50 years, spending decades on the Tournament Committee, and a year as President of the Club. He was also a member of the Fort Worth Breakfast Club.<\/p>\n
Mike had a very outgoing personality, and his favorite thing was learning as much as he could about anyone he met, anywhere he went. He had the rare ability to connect with people from all walks of life and treated everyone he met with the utmost respect.<\/p>\n
Mike was preceded in death by his parents, Roy and Florene Thomas; his in-laws, Clayton and Margaret Watson; and his brother-in-law, Mike Watson.<\/p>\n
Mike is survived by his wife of almost 59 years Patsy, son Michael Thomas Jr and wife Kerri; son Brandon Thomas; daughter Anne Smith and husband Stephen; grandchildren Margaret Smith, Katie Beth Thomas, Thomas Smith, and Caroline Thomas; brother Trent Thomas; sister Paula Burnett and her husband Joe; several cousins and nieces; and his beloved \u201cgrand-dogs\u201d.<\/p>\n
A celebration of life will be held at 10am. Monday April 20, 2026 at University Christian Church with a reception following at The Tradition.<\/p>\n
In lieu of flowers, the family requests that memorial contributions be made to Gladney, designated for The Gladney Cup. Donations may be made online at Gladney.org or mailed to 6300 John Ryan Drive, Fort Worth, TX 76132.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Michael (Mike) Roy Thomas was born August 12, 1944, to Roy and Florene Thomas and passed away April…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":256800,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[116,118,117],"class_list":{"0":"post-256799","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-fort-worth","8":"tag-fort-worth","9":"tag-fort-worth-headlines","10":"tag-fort-worth-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/256799","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=256799"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/256799\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/256800"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=256799"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=256799"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=256799"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}