Billy Thornton

Monday, February 2, 2009

SIKESTON -- Billy Gene Thornton, 73, formerly of East Prairie, died at 3:320 a.m. Feb. 1, 2009, in the Southeast Missouri Hospital in Cape Girardeau.

Born May 5, 1935, in Canalou, to the late Virgil and Katie Ivie Thornton, he had lived in Sikeston for the past eight months. He was a member of the First Baptist Church in East Prairie and a veteran of the U.S. Navy during the Korean War.

On Dec. 13, 1958, at Charleston he married Joyce Brack who survives of the home.

Other survivors include: one son, Billy Gene Thornton Jr. of Sikeston; one daughter and son-in-law, Terri and Ron Wallace of Sikeston; and four grandchildren.

He was preceded in death by two brothers, Jerry Thornton and Glenn Thornton; and two sisters, Carolyn Coffer and Berniece Poole.

Funeral services were conducted at 2 p.m. today at the Shelby Funeral Chapel in East Prairie. Dennis Norvel and David Jackson officiated.

Burial followed in the Dogwood Cemetery.