Tom Eugene

Warren

Lieutenant Colonel Tom Eugene Warren, 73 of Baton Rouge, LA passed away on October 5, 2026. Tom was born at US Army hospital at Fukuoka, Japan on July 10, 1953, to the late Sergeant Major Lynn Jean Warren and Emmette Claudia Smith Warren. The son of a career Army NCO, Tom had his first haircut when he was 4 days old at the Fukuoka NCO club. Tom graduated from Killeen, Texas High School. In June 1975 he graduated from the U.S. Military Academy and was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant in the Field Artillery.

After graduation, Tom completed the Artillery Officer Basic Course at Ft. Sill, OK and then was off to a 3-year tour in the 25th Infantry Division in Hawaii, where he served as an artillery forward observer and later as staff officer, and chief of the battalion survey section. Returning to Ft. Sill, OK for the Artillery Officer Advanced Course, he was stationed there in subsequent assignments until leaving active duty in 1981. He earned an MBA in 1982 and a MS in Geological Engineering in 1985, both from University of Oklahoma. While there, he met Cheryl Cummings. They were married in 1988, which ended in divorce in 2009.

From Oklahoma, he moved to Midland, TX, where he worked as a reservoir engineer for Exxon while Cheryl remained behind to complete her PhD. When Exxon restructured those operations, Tom found other employment with the Research, Development, and Engineering Center at Ft. Belvoir, VA, spending time in Panama following the US invasion in 1989. He left that position when a change in staff requirement conflicted with his duties as a Major in the Army Reserve, and was hired by Woodward-Clyde Consultants in Lake Charles, LA. By this time, Cheryl had completed her degree and joined him there, also working for Woodward-Clyde. Shortly after making the move, his Army Reserve unit was called to active duty in 1990 for the first Gulf War.

Returning from the Middle East in 1991, he transferred Reserve assignments to the Army Engineering and Support Center in Huntsville, AL, a position he was to hold until his retirement from the Army Reserve. But he would again be called to active duty in 2003 for Operation Iraqi Freedom and shipped again to the Middle East. He retired from the Reserves in 2003. His decorations include the Bronze Star and the Legion of Merit.

Tom worked for over 23 years as a Senior Environmental Engineer for Woodward-Clyde and its successor firm URS, eventually relocating from Lake Charles to their Baton Rouge office, where he lived for the remainder of his life. While at URS, he handled stormwater, water quality and water discharge compliance issues and permits; spill prevention/water pollution prevention plans; hydrogeology and aquifer evaluations; FEMA snow removal and flood recoveries; sewage sludge management program at Fort Polk; closure and/or remediation of hazardous/solid waste impoundments and landfills; land surface subsidence issues; and other programs. He retired in 2013 to take care of his ailing mother in Magee, MS during the final year of her life.

As if being a paratrooper and serving in two wars were not enough excitement for one lifetime, Tom also survived a famous train wreck. Cheryl was an avid model railroader, and they shared a passion for trains, such that vacations often centered around train travel. The last such vacation was on Amtrak to California in 1999. While returning to Baton Rouge, they were riding on the train they call the City of New Orleans when it collided with a truck at a grade crossing in Kankakee, Illinois and was derailed. He and Cheryl were in the sleeper car that caught fire, and in which 11 other people lost their lives. They both escaped serious injury, but Tom was still wearing a fracture boot when he did his two weeks of Reserve duty later that summer.

Tom was widely read, with a broad range of interests on non-fiction topics such as finance, history, and Bible prophecy. He was also a great movie buff, especially old movies and musicals. Like Remington Steele, when he quoted a movie, he named not only the film title and leading actors and actresses, but the year released and the director as well. His passion for musicals includes those featuring Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers, Gene Kelly, Eleanor Powell, Ann Miller, Judy Garland, Audrey Hepburn, and many others.

Most of us as we age, eventually switch from vigorous sports such as tennis or running to more low-impact forms of exercise. Never one for such conventional thinking, Tom took up ballroom dancing in his 60’s, and became quite adept at it. He always had a big smile while dancing and had indicated ballroom dancing has made his 60’s one of his most enjoyable years.

Tom is survived by his older brother Lon Augustus Warren, nephew Michael Ryan Warren, and grand-niece Abby Warren. He was preceded in death by his parents. He had no children.

A man of great faith, Tom was a humble servant of Jesus Christ, his Lord and master who tried to show forth in his life the ideals of the West Point motto “Duty, Honor, Country”. In the sure and certain hope of the resurrection to eternal life through our Lord Jesus Christ we commend him to Almighty God. “Well done; Be thou at peace.”

The funeral service celebrating the life of Lieutenant Colonel Tom E. Warren will be held at the Colonial Chapel in Magee, Mississippi on November 11, 2026 with the visitation from 10:30 AM until the memorial service at 11:30. Burial will follow at Magee City Cemetery.