Birth date: Jul 18, 1963 Death date: Mar 10, 2023
Thomas Ezra Hurford (Tom) of Roy, Utah, passed away in the early evening hours of Friday, March 10, 2023, at the age of 59. Thomas was born in Elizabethtown, Illinois on July 18, 1963, to Nora Mae Chasteen Hurford and Benjamin Tho Read Obituary
This is Terese Grotius I was a cashier and worked with Thomas for 8 years at Furrow tried calling him several times but no answer! My sister is sending my heartfelt condolences to you and your family! So very sorry as I don’t have the internet. Thank you Terese Grotius McKannon, Evansville Indiana 47711
For many years, Thomas and I were Community Managers for Forge of Empires North America (an online game). That's nearly a million testy players generally being upset all the time and wanting questions answered.
It was our job to answer them. Thomas was unfailingly kind, positive, sweet, caring, and knowledgeable. He knew that game inside out. Where most Managers just answered questions, he was still actively involved in playing the game. That made him understand how that game ticked better than anyone. We worked together for hours each day, talking, laughing, and he'd always tell me what he was cooking that day for Diana and Ben just to make me good and jealous of the meal. Thomas was a good friend, the best. I'm going to miss him fiercely. I only hope he knows how much he will be missed. Rest in peace, my dear friend
Here's the link to Tom's Slide Show by Diana Hurford
Being one of Tom's three older brothers and he being the youngest in our family one of my first memories of Tom is helping our mother by rocking him to sleep. Needless to say my little brother at one time was able to be held by a 12 yr old brother and rocked in our mom's platform rocker. More to follow....
I just know that Tom had a quick wit, a good brain and was very easy to like. Time passes too quickly. Rest in Peace Tom.
I first met Tom online, early in 2009 in a game called Eve Online.
A mutual friend talked me into finally quitting World of Warcraft as it was nothing but Drama with the direction the game developers had progressed in. He told me about this little game he was with a group of people from one of the other game we had played together (Civilization), and that I would just find a nice little corner and enjoy playing a quiet and relaxing little game with a bunch of similarly minded folks.
Ha! That’s was a joke. I started playing and within weeks I was being asked to help this guy, Trayk, do this project, and that project. To move items from here to there. To buy something at this market and sell it at that other market. To make x number of this do-hickey and to do such and such with them.
Within weeks of me signing up, I was tasked to help plan a move of the entire group's stuff in Eve from a nice safe corner to a downright player-pirate infested place. Trayk was the only person with both the skill and the resources to make it happen, but he was being pulled in so many different directions he couldn’t plan anything - and that drove him downright crazy! It was the start of a great friendship.
We did that move, and several others. We turned our little “The Dead Parrots Shoppe” from a next to nothing into one of the largest and most respected groups in the game. There were half a dozen or so of us that did it and I am proud to say that Trayk and I were one of the keys to our success.
We were known to be a couple of grumpy old guys, even if we were not that old. But, grumpy we definitely are! Often Jesse, our group's leader, would dump the two of us into a private voice channel just so that we wouldn’t “infect” others with our constant pestering, nagging, raging and complaining about little things! But, it was how we worked. We couldn’t fix those little things if we didn’t know about them and understood what made it a thing to begin with.
Just as we were hitting our peak on Eve, a lighting bolt hit my house and fried my computer. I was between jobs, and insurance was being like insurance is and making a painful event even more painful. Trayk showed the type of person he really is - he sent me the parts to make my own computer. It’s one of those things I will never forget. Just because we had never met face to face, didn’t mean we were not good friends. Friends help each other, particularly when they are in their times of need.
In the way of internet games, our time in Eve ended. Some of us moved onto other games together, some apart. For a few years Trayk and I stayed playing with the same group in different games (Project Gorgon, Wildstar, Atlas, KOTOR, Everquest 2, Planetside, DDO & Fallen Earth to name the ones that lasted at least a few months), generally falling into the patterns we had developed over the years. He would focus on building things and generating cash, I would focus on logistics and finding things we could use. From the outside you would just hear us being grumpy together, but once you know us you would see that our grumpiness was just how we solved problems and that we would always have more laughter and happiness than true grumpiness. And, we would be like friends should be, always helping those who needed help without a thought to doing so; looking forward and planning our next event, and telling the best Dad jokes while doing it.
Between Tom’s move to Utah, my adoption of my daughter and all those other things we call life, we stopped playing games together but we never stopped being friends. You will be missed my friend.
–Rich “Spacy” Olson
We always used to say that Trayk was the beating heart of the EVE Alliance we ran called "BRUCE." If Friedrich was the idea guy, Trayk was the guy who made it happen. If something needed doing that wasn't glamorous but needed to be done right, Trayk would always be there. If a job would run long and people needed to go, Trayk would be the one to stay late and get it completed. If a venture ran low on ISK (EVE's currency) and needed funding, the venture would never go into the red and only Trayk would know why.
Or, if we're being honest, only Trayk's closest friends would know why. Because those who knew him best used to joke that he was a "space dwarf." He hoarded riches - fabulous amounts of them - but would never fail to be there for a friend in need, and never fail to help out. He would grouch and complain about it to no end, always happy to point out that "your mom" was part of the problem - but he would be the very last person to leave your side. You could practically see him scowling, but you always knew there was a smile behind the scowl. Trayk was never happier than when he was helping someone and scowling and grumbling away while doing it.
I like to think that wherever Trayk is now, someone needs a hand, and so he's the first one to get his hands dirty and the last one to stop working, and while he's at it, he'll grumble and scowl and laugh and talk about their mom - and he'll be utterly invaluable and completely missed when he leaves.
Fair winds, T.
- JF/FP
