Martha, the Kemp family’s housekeeper for many decades, had sweet memories of caring for baby Tommy. She loved to tell us about the fun he would have on laundry days when she would sit him in the middle of the bed and pile clouds of clean, warm sheets on him. Tommy would softly giggle, but mainly, Martha remembered his content smiles when she reached him at the bottom of the pile. Baby Tommy was Martha’s favorite.

And of course, we understand why. It’s because she could see to the heart of him. From the start, Tommy was a simple guy with simple needs—good food, good company, a comfy chair that preferably reclined. Could he be a grumpsometimes? Sure. But he was also unfailingly generous and hard-working, a good friend, a cat whisperer, and a devoted son, brother, husband, father, grandfather, uncle, and cousin. To say Tommy will be missed by many is an understatement.

Thomas Carter Kemp was born in Corpus Christi on October 24, 1952, the youngest of three brothers. The Kemp Family lived in Corpus’s Oak Park neighborhood until 1963, when they moved to Portland. Tommy started 6th grade that fall at East Cliff Elementary.

Tommy’s teachers loved him, and he excelled in his school work. Math was his favorite. That he was a smart, gifted kid was fairly obvious to those around him. At one point, the family’s doctor offered to pay for Tommy to go to medical school, butTommy turned him down. Medical school didn’t sound like a terribly good time. There was more to Tommy than brains.

For one, Tommy was a sports enthusiast-supreme. Baseball was his great love, starting in the Corpus Christi Little League and continuing in Portland. When he was older and ready to move up, Tommy’s father Foster helped build Gregory-Portland’s first Pony League fields, and Tommy and his friends wore out those base paths. He was on the first baseball team at Gregory-Portland High School. Tommy was a standout catcher, and the team won a Regional Championship.

Tommy graduated from high school in 1970 and headed to Southwest Texas State University. San Marcos was definitely more fun than medical school. Tommy played softball with his friends, frequented the dives on the outskirts of the then-dry city, and even caught Willie Nelson and Jerry Jeff Walker acouple of times at Skate Skeller.

After graduating with his business degree, Tommy moved back to South Texas. He worked at the DuPont plant in Ingleside and found a new group of softball buddies, playing for the DuPont employee team and in a local rec league. Tommy thought his life was pretty darn great.

But at the end of the day, he hadn’t known what he was missing until along came Debbie Butler—the sweetest, smartest girl he’d ever met.

Debbie wasn’t the first Butler Tommy met, though. While Debbie was toiling away on her computer and math degrees in San Marcos, Tommy got to be good buddies with Judy, Debbie’s sister who still lived in Portland. Soon enough, Judy started thinking Debbie and Tommy would be a good fit. She set them up one summer, and the rest is history. Tommy and Debbie fell fast in love. They were married in August 1977 at Our Lady of Mount Carmel, honeymooned at La Mansion on the San Antonio Riverwalk, and when they came back to Portland, moved into the house Debbie’s grandfather, Emil Hayek, built them on Maple Drive.

Tommy and Debbie built a beautiful life together. After enjoying a few years as just the two of them, Debbie delivered a daughter (Megan) and son (Kyle) in quick succession. Several years later, another son (Kevin) joined the family and sealed it as a party of five.

Looking for a better schedule that would give him more time with his wife and children, Tommy left DuPont in the early 1980s and started working as a manager and salesman at Portland Lumber and Supply, the much-loved and respected local business owned and operated by the Butler-Hayek Family. The Kemp kids grew up at the lumber yard surrounded by family and a team of long-time employees who became family, as well. Tommy put the kids to work helping take inventory as soon as they could add and subtract. Tommy was highly regarded in the South Texas lumber community, serving as vice-president and then president of the Coastal Bend Lumber Dealers.

After Portland Lumber closed its doors in the early 1990s, Tommy took a job as an operator at the Koch Petroleum Industries refinery in Corpus Christi(later renamed Flint Hills Resources). The shift work was punishing, with the length of turnarounds increasing year after year. But Tommy kept putting one foot in front of the other, and he and Debbie continued providing their family with all of the opportunities they asked for.

The bonus blessing from Tommy’s time at Flint Hills was the work family he found there. During those days and nights when time seemed to stand still, he and his shift brothers would cook delicious feasts (Tommy always made the beans) and do what they could to entertain each other. Tommy loved his Flint Hills family dearly and, after his retirement, kept in close contact, sometimes joining them for a round of golf. He was grateful for their friendship, and they supported him until the end.

Ultimately, everything Tommy did was for his wife and kids. Tommy and Debbie were partners in everything. In good times and in bad. Whether blessed with plenty or persevering when times were leaner. Tommy and Debbie set an excellent example for their children, and he was always there for his children. He coached their softball and baseball teams and followed them around the golf course trying his hardest—and sometimes even managing—to not shout at them across the fairway to keep their heads down. He volunteered at their school festivals and with OLMC youth groups. The kids were lucky to have such a fiercely loyal, kind-hearted, and sentimental dad who saw and accepted them for who they were.

The entire family was lucky, in fact. Tommy would drop everything to help and care for his parents and in-laws. He was one of his sister-in-law Judy’s most dependable volunteers when she ran the local Pioneer Days (later Windfest) and Harbor Lights festivals. He mowed yards; rekeyed locks;hauled junk; repaired window screens; rocked grandbabies; cleaned litter boxes; shuttled kids and old folks; cheered at soccer fields, baseball parks, and taekwondo meets; never missed a school program, dance recital, or choir concert; and only occasionally complained about it. If you called, Tommy showed up.

But he never stopped having fun. Tommy was a lifelong hunter, preferring dove and quail seasons. He was an eternally frustrated golfer. He and his brother Harry had season tickets to the Corpus Christi Hooks and thoroughly enjoyed bothering thebeleaguered umpires there. Tommy was a great cook. He taught us how to make the best guacamole, and his grandkids would tell you that he grilled the finest steaks in the land. Tommy also passed down a joyfully shameless love for TV. He rarely missed an Astros game and always had time for Scottie Scheffler on Sunday afternoons. Mornings weren’t complete without the Price is Right, and he never met an NCIS franchise he didn’t love.

Like Martha knew a long time ago—simple guy, simple pleasures. He was a good man who builta good life, and it’s hard to find words to describehow much he was loved and will be missed.

Tommy is gone too soon, having waged a grueling battle against pulmonary fibrosis. But amultitude of angels awaits his arrival at the pearly gates: his parents, Foster Erwin Kemp and Ada Elizabeth (Betty) Carter Kemp; his in-laws, Bill Butler and Dolores Hayek Butler; his uncles and aunts, Harry (Bud) and Mabel Carter and George Rothrock and Martha (Doodle) Carter Rothrock; and many cousins and friends. He is survived by his brothers and sisters-in-law, Harry and Jeanie Kemp of Corpus Christi and Joe and Sharon Kemp of Wimberley; his wife, Debora Butler Kemp of Portland; his children and their spouses, Megan Kemp and Jake Witherspoon of Portland, Kyle and Michelle Kemp of Hallettsville, and Kevin Kemp and Timea Mester of Timaru, New Zealand; his grandchildren, Ella Rose and Edward Thomas (Teddy) Witherspoon, Levi Foster and Magnolia Love Kemp, and Anna Ilona Kemp; his brother and sisters-in-law, Kurt and Leasa Butler and Judy Butler; his goddaughter, Taylor Butler; and numerous nieces, nephews, and cousins.

A memorial service for Tommy will be held at Our Lady of Mount Carmel Catholic Church in Portland, Texas on Monday, June 29, 2026, at 1:30 p.m. In lieu of flowers, the family requests donations be made to Texas Campaign for the Environment (https://www.texasenvironment.org/) or the American Lung Association (https://American Lung Association/clean-air).