Thurman Dee Glenn was born May 23, 1931 to Walter and Nettie Glenn in Hackett, Arkansas in the family farmhouse and was one of four siblings. He attended Hackett High School and went on to graduate from the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville where he earned a Bachelor of Business Administration.
He served in the United States Air Force from 1952 through 1962 as a munitions officer. Working in the gas and oil industries he and his family spent 14 years in Tulsa, Oklahoma, moving to Dallas in 1970.
After Joy’s passing in 1987, he remarried and survived his wife Donna Lucille Glenn of 32 years. He retired from Sun Oil (Sunoco) in 1989 and moved to Hide Away, Texas, near Tyler, where he and Donna lived a very active life square dancing, golfing and serving in the music ministry of their church. Thurman was a loving and devoted father and husband.
After family and faith, the love of Thurman’s life was his meticulous pursuit of his family’s genealogy which dates back to Robert the Bruce. He would spend hours every day at his computer and literally went through hundreds of reams of paper, printing out and keeping notebooks of his research. With the help of his oldest son Randal, he was inducted into the Sons of the American Revolution in 2025, and post passing, his family plans to use his research to get him posthumously named a Mayflower Descendant.
In the last years of his life, he also published a “Storyworth” Volume of prominent personal stories from his earlier days In addition to his wives, Thurman is also preceded in death by his son Bradford, brothers Clarence & Ervin Glenn, sister Pauline Glenn Stein and granddaughter Hannah Joy Glenn.
Thurman is survived by his son Randal & wife Lisa; his daughter Debbie Arledge and husband Jeff, and youngest son Jeffrey Glenn and wife Stacey. He is further survived by Stepson Dennis Wilson, and step- daughters Denis Dale and Deb Jenson, Sister-in-law Janie Basinger, nieces Bobbie Simchah Bar-David, Susan Byrum, Ginger Wells and Amy Plunkett, Leisa Moore, Sheri Hester, and Cathy Ford. He is also survived by a multitude of grandchildren, great grandchildren, great nieces and nephews, all of whom he loved very much and dearly enjoyed.