Mr. Thomas E. Sims
Cullum:20228
Class:'55
Cadet Company:I2
Date of Birth:November 12, 1933
Date of Death:October 1, 2024 - View or Post a Eulogy
Thomas Eugene "Tom" Sims was born in Brookland, Arkansas (population about 300) on 12 November 1933 to Thomas Roland Sims (25 JUL 1906 - 11 Dec 1984) and Roma Hazeline Barringer Sims (3 JUN 1909 - 1 Apr 1996). His father worked for the Cotton Belt Railroad as a Clerk Telegrapher and Station Master, and his Mom was a Homemaker and sometime School Teacher. His only sibling was his younger brother, Bill (15 JUN 1938 - 19 Sep 2002).
He moved to Stamps, Arkansas (a segregated town of about 2500 population) in 1937, moved to Pine Bluff, Arkansas for his 6th grade year and then back to Stamps. He lived in Bearden, Arkansas for his 9th grade, moved back to Stamps, and graduated from Stamps High School in 1951 as co-valedictorian in a graduating class of 38. Tom was President of his junior class, an eagle scout, a member of the Order of the Arrow Brotherhood, a staff member of the District summer Boy Scout camp, and an active, devout Christian in the First Baptist church. He played quarterback and corner back on his high school football team, which was undefeated during his regular senior season, and played basketball, tennis, baseball and ran track for Stamps High School. He was named the outstanding athlete in his class.
Tom entered the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York in July 1951, played plebe football, and was an outstanding intramural athlete in many sports. He was an excellent student and graduated in 1955 near the top of his class academically.
After graduation from West Point, Tom was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the US Air Force and served five plus years as a navigator in Florida, Texas and New Jersey. He flew the maximum number of allowable flying hours for three years when he flew all over the world as a crew member on C-118's out of McGuire AFB, New Jersey.
Tom resigned from the Air Force in 1960 to become a Registered Representative with Merrill Lynch in Trenton, New Jersey. In 1969 he became the Trust Investment Officer for First National Bank of Princeton and in 1971 he became a Trust Investment Officer for New Jersey National Bank in Trenton, New Jersey. From 1972 through 1980 he headed up Trust Investment Departments as a Vice-President for Merchants Bank in Syracuse, New York and then for National State Bank in Trenton, New Jersey.
In 1980 Tom re-joined Merrill Lynch in Trenton New Jersey as a Registered Representative specializing in U.S. Treasury bond futures speculation and closed out his investment career from 1987 until 1989 by trading financial futures on the Chicago Board of Trade as a Member Introducing Brokerage Firm.
Tom's first two marriages ended in divorce. He was married from 1960 to 1980 to Lynn Nelson Sims and they had three children, Betsy, Tom C., and Richard. His second wife was Mary Parks Sims and he married Georgia Langley Sims in 1989. Georgia and Tom had a very happy marriage, living in Phoenix, Arizona and Las Vegas, Nevada until they lost her battle with lymphoma cancer in 1998.
Tom had played a lot of high stakes poker in private games while in the Air Force and later, and began playing poker at a local casino when he lived in Phoenix. He moved to Las Vegas in 1994 where he played live casino poker.
Tom was probably the first ever to record play-by-play accounts of final table action at major poker tournaments which he did as a volunteer staff member at the 1996, 1997 and 1998 World Series of Poker.
In 1996 he discovered and began playing video poker, which can be played in casinos with a mathematical advantage on some machines.
In December 1998, Tom met Susan, a tourist from Ohio, who was in Las Vegas for the weekend. She shared his interest in video poker, and they were married in 1999.
Tom has been very active for many years running the vpFREE Video Poker Group, which has over 11,000 members; as Webmaster for the Stamps High School Class of 1951 web site; as Webmaster for the West Point Class of 1955 web site; and as co-founder and moderator for the West Point Class of 1955 email nets.
Tom became an agnostic/atheist while at West Point. He was a conservative, libertarian, isolationist, who practiced the "Golden Rule".
Tom and Susan spent his retirement years in Las Vegas enjoying good health.
Tom E. Sims
31 July 2018
