For those of you who had been to past Graham Field fly-ins, you all knew Terry "T" Thompson. He and his wife always brought the young animals to the fly-in and probably were more of a hit then the airplanes and their pilots.

He was found dead yesterday afternoon. He was the lead story on national news this morning because his animals are loose.

He was a great guy, but often miss understood. He came back from Vietnam a changed man. He was a great pilot that had all the ratings and several type ratings too.

Rest in peace Terry

How is his wife?

Diana - she is a total basket case. I pray she can deal with it someday.

Condolenses to his family. I saw the news of this earlier this morning and thought how sad for his family. I also thought of the sensless slaughter of the animals.
Keith

I'm sorry to here about Terry. I heard it on the radio this morning and thought it had to be Terry, how many wildlife farms can there be in Zanesville, OH. My condolences to you and his whole family. I got to meet some of them at last years fly in. If there is anything that I can do to help out in anyway please let me know.
Sorry again and God bless,
Nick W.

I am so sorry....

....to hear of the tragic loss. Knowing that you know the family somehow made it very personal. I watched the video and felt very emotional. So sad. Take care of one another.

None of us knows what haunts the minds of others.

bob

I heard about it this morning and my heart dropped . My heart and prayers go out to everyone. This is just so sad for everyone and to have it plastered in the national news doesn't make it any easier. God Bless all!

John, i am very sorry to hear about your good friend. I had the opportunity to meet he and his wife at your fly-in last year. My thoughts and prayers will be with you all.

Deleted because after reading what I said, I do really come off as an insensitive a-hole. Not taking it back, just taking off the thread.

David, your thoughts and emotions are justified, but I will not judge a man during his darkest hour.

God be with his family and those that knew and loved him.

David, I didn't know the guy, nor do I know who all on this forum was his friend.
I did however read all the media hype, and comments left by others on media pages.

Having said that, I think your post was out of line for this thread. I respect your opinions, but there is something called time and place as well as respect. It is obvious he had friends here, and the words you said (calling him a piece of trash) were very disrespectful to a friend on this forum who may be mourning. If you want to rant, do it on CNN or MSN's website.

Also, if he was a vietnam vet, i feel for the guy. I know many of vets, some come home perfectly fine. Others, can't even manage their day to day life. War can really mess a guy up mentally. I have close family and friends who's lives have been forever changed due to war. I have the deepest amount of respect for ANYONE who has fought for my freedom and suffers years later.

I also care a lot about animals, and I am an avid hunter. I am huge on hunting ethics, and I hate see animals abused such as pitbull fighting. But calling any vietnam vet that just passed, regardless of the how or why, a piece of trash after reading some media websites... very disrespectful.

Like mountainmatt said, I too will not judge a man during his darkest hour.

I agree with Mountain Matt & c172tw. You see we all have our own demons inside..sometimes they are only known to ourselves and once in a while they get the best of us. Lets be careful how we judge others as we be judged by others. This is a traject event and we do not know all of the facts....and may never will, we only know the results.
To his family and friends, my deepest sympathy.

The constant barrage of taxes,fees, permits, registration, reports and conforming to all federal, state, and local laws is pushing us all towards the edge. Some were a little closer when they started.

Whatever they spent the special wild animal registration and permit fees on, it wasn't a contingency plan for dealing with the problem the fees were supposed to cover. When law enforcement feels compelled to shoot camels because they're dangerous, that doesn't bode well for the citizenry.

Us poor ba$tards in Idaho are told we need to live with dangerous animals around our homes and livestock because they have a right to be there too, and there's "no documented cases" of them ever attacking a human. Funny how they get more aggressive as they move East, I bet they'd be ferocious by the time they made it to the capital.

Hello Folks,

I was lucky enough to visit Terry's farm a couple years ago. He was a pretty interesting guy. He loved the animals. He loved flying. He loved racing boats. He might have been a bit mis-understood but he still loved the animals.

I didn't see his wild animal farm any differently than any other wild animal farm. I have seen one other farm like it up close and personal and another on TV about 20 miles from where I live. They looked just like his. He said that most animals came there after they were done performing in the circus.

Its sad that instead of learning from this guy the zoo and local animal preserve probably pestered him for no reason. The thing the news won't tell you is that he got endangered species of cats to breed in captivity.

Tim

Sad that he suicided but it was a shame that he turned all the animals loose first. Don't know what all the animals were but I can see why the authorities killed the predators. Can you imagine the public reaction (and rightfully so) if they hadn't & one of the big cats had killed someone? They probably had very little natural fear of man left in them so it'd be a real possibility.
A tragedy in more ways than one. My sympathy to those who knew Terry.

I think we've been free so long, we feel we have the freedom to control other peoples freedoms. Not so.

My deepest sympathy to all involved.

Perhaps I've missed something, although I've read this thread from start to finish... what was the reason this man took his own life and why did he let the animals out?

My sincerest condolences to all, regardless of the reason.

We had a similar situation here in SE Idaho a few years back. http://www.localnews8.com/news/26908552/detail.html

I was at the cabinwarming party of a retired school principal buddy of mine the day and night this happened. I along with others were camped out on the rural property, no use driving after imbibing, and there was some of that going on as I recall

At one point, in the middle of the night I got up to answer natures call, and as I drained the sump while standing outside the tent, I had the joking to myself thought "got to keep an eye out for ligers". Then I did the mental work of how the landscape was laided out relative to where I was and where the ligers escaped, and quickly realized I REALLY had to keep an eye out! Hard to believe, but a real deal that night, and it was several days before all in the area somewhat relaxed. What made it worse is the nutjob owner was unable to count high enough to give an accurate number for the authorities that be, he had no idea how many were still unaccounted for. An interesting sidenote: some time later it became known that the women he was calling his wife, and yeah they were doing the nasty, was in fact his full blooded sister