Tom Pressman, Rest in Peace

#402 / News Extra

The Flood world is mourning tonight after receiving stunning news of the sudden death of long-time friend and mentor Tom Pressman at age 76. Micah Pressman and his sister Jessica both reported on Facebook that their father passed away after a short battle with pancreatic cancer.

Tom and Sharon, his wife of 51 years, along with Micah and Jessica, have all been dear friends and honored members of the extended Flood family for more than a quarter of a century.

Quarter of a Century

The Pressmans have been central to so many important events in the band’s long story. It was almost exactly 26 years that Tom attended his first Flood rehearsal, his jokes and joyful stories making such an impression that Charlie Bowen was still thinking about Tom the next morning when he emailed his cousin Kathy.

"Tom saw Dave Peyton getting out of the car in front of our house last night and stopped to chat,” Charlie wrote. “When he heard that we were going to play, he said he wanted to hear. A few minutes later, he dropped in and stayed for the whole session.”

After that, Tom was frequently a one-man audience at The Flood’s weekly gatherings. Such a regular was he, in fact, that when The Flood recorded its first studio album, the band mates thanked Tom in the liner notes for inspiring them with his wisdom and wise cracks at all those weekly sessions.

Tom and Sharon sometimes hosted the band in their home, and invited them to play at their parties.

The Flood worked the reception for Micah’s wedding and at company picnics at Heritage Farm, and of course Tom and Sharon were instrumental in helping pulled off The Flood’s big surprise party for Joe Dobbs’ 70th birthday in 2004.

Introducing Youngblood

Tom Pressman’s biggest, most lasting contribution to all things Floodish was his introducing his Flood buddies to Jacob Scarr, the talented guitarist whom the older Floodsters came to call “Youngblood.”

As we reported earlier in Flood Watch, it all happened at the last Flood get-together before Christmas 2006, which was a standing-room-only evening, with more than 35 people crammed into the Bowen house.

“As I was weaving my way through the crowd in the living room,” band manager Pamela Bowen recalled in a letter to friends a few weeks later, “a woman I didn’t know thanked me for letting her leave her sons here while she went shopping.

“I looked around with some anxiety, looking for small children, but I found only two teen-agers who had helped themselves to some root beer and seemed to be awestruck by the musicians. … It was neat watching them react to what the band was playing.”

Pamela didn't know it then, of course, but the two teens she saw were Jacob and his younger brother, Daniel Scarr, who were in Pressman’s Sunday school class. It was Tom who recommended that their mom, P.J. Scarr, bring the boys by to hear the band.

Jacob was just 14 when he started sitting in at the weekly rehearsal, officially joining up a couple years later, and played with The Flood until the summer of 2011 when he left Huntington to start college in Colorado.

We will always be thankful to Sharon and Tom Pressman for those memorable years. To read his obituary, click here.

Rest in peace, old friend.