Jay T. Thomson

Jay T. Thomson of Etowah, Tennessee and Cisco, Georgia passed away January 25, 2020. He was 84.
Jay was born October 17, 1935 in Fort Worth, Texas. He spent his childhood years growing up in the Boston, Massachusetts area before moving with his family to the Bay Area of California, where he graduated from Mount Diablo High School in Concord, California.
Jay joined the Army after high school, eventually attaining the rank of Sergeant E5. While in the Army he attended Combat Engineer School in Fort Carson, Colorado and served as a Company Clerk for the 61st Infantry Regiment. He was released early in 1956 to two years of reserve service.
After the Army, Jay worked as a long-haul truck driver for several years before friends in Greenback, Tennessee introduced him to Betty Ann Hipps and her young son Gary. Jay and Betty were married on October 6, 1966 in Greenback, Tennessee, and were married for 47 years.
Jay and Betty’s son Robert Weston Thomson was born in September 1969 and Jay went to work for the L&N Railroad soon after. Jay retired from the railroad (now CSX) as a maintenance-of-way gang foreman in 1988, retiring early due to medical reasons.
Jay was a long-time member of the Etowah Rescue Squad and Rural Fire Department. He was an Emergency Medical Technician and served as the department’s Public Affairs officer. Jay also served as a reserve police officer for the Etowah Police Department and worked numerous shifts as a dispatcher for police, fire, and rescue.
Jay had numerous hobbies, including playing board games and strategy war games, playing Train Simulator on his computer, reading science fiction and fantasy novels and non-fiction works like histories and biographies, watching NASCAR races on TV and attending them in person and collecting NASCAR memorabilia, collecting model trains, building scale models of airplanes, race cars, and fire trucks, and taking photos.
Jay was a prolific photographer. From the late 1970s into the 1990s, Jay’s photos documenting fire and rescue activity around the region appeared frequently in the Etowah Enterprise, Athens Daily Post Athenian, and numerous other newspapers. His railroad photos frequently appeared in railfanning magazines such as Extra 2200 South and The Short Line.
Jay was proceeded in death by his mother, Elizabeth Porter Hull Davis, step-father Weston Blakely Davis, and wife, Betty. He is survived by his sister Diane Phillips, special friend Brenda Gibson, sons Gary Walker (Karen) and Robert (Wes) Thomson (Connie), grandchildren Stephanie Walker Farmer (Travis), Katie Walker Johnson (Dennis), Christopher Walker, Ashley Walker (Danny), several great-grandchildren, nieces, nephews, and numerous friends.