Ron Brothers, 74, of Reno, TX passed away Saturday, Aug. 8, 2026, at his home. He was born August 16, 1951, in the old Paris Sanitarium in Paris on Bonham Street, the son of Artie Mae LaRue and Thomas Glynn Brothers.
A few months after his birth, his parents moved to Dallas, TX where he was raised. He graduated from South Oak Cliff High School there in 1969. During his school days he played the coronet since the 4 th grade at John Neely Bryan Elementary and became assistant Drum Major at Boude Storey Junior High School, Drum Major and Student Director of the Concert Choir at South Oak Cliff and was involved in the performing arts.
He was baptized at the First Baptist Church in Honey Grove where he spent many of his youthful summers with his grandparents Manuel and Ruby Bierbower Hohenberger. He remained a Baptist all his life.
He attended three years at the University of Texas at Arlington. While studying history there he opted out for a management opportunity with a local grocery chain. He spent the next 25 years of his life in grocery store management with Piggly Wiggly, Skaggs and the Albertsons chains.
In 1993 he returned home to Paris where he worked as an assistant manager for the Spanish Oaks Apartments until taking a position as a clerk for the Paris Post Office in 1996 and retired from there in 2016.
His love for history and genealogy was prevalent throughout most of his life. He began researching his own family genealogy in 1971. His roots to Lamar County go back to 1841 when his 4th great-grandparents Gardner and Rebecca Morrow Reed arrived here and took up a land grant. The Reed family has ties by marriage to all the old-time families of northern Lamar County such as the Brothers, Castleberry, Duff, Long, Maddox, Mullens, Popham, Smyers, Stephens and Vaughn.
In 1989 he began a monumental task of cataloging all the graves and cemeteries in Lamar County in part to find all those related to him. The work became known as “The Death and Cemetery Records of Lamar County, Texas.” Since that time his database had grown to one of the most outstanding research tools for this county. His longtime friend Betsy Mills worked constantly and diligently to maintain the database and make it available for free to anyone using the Internet. Now he has become a part of that legacy he created and left behind.
His love for history was prevalent in other ways. He established websites for all the Confederate regiments that enlisted men in Lamar County during the War Between the States. There, researchers could find the names of soldiers, the battles they fought in and selected biographies of men in that war from Lamar County.
In 1998 he established a Civil War reenactors group for persons in Lamar and surrounding counties. The group eventually took on the name of the 9th Texas Artillery, a Confederate Artillery battery formed in Paris in 1861 by James M. Daniel. With a reproduced 12 pound mountain howitzer, a cannon just like that used during the war, the group reenacted in many events in Texas, Arkansas, Oklahoma and Louisiana.
In 1995 he became President of the Lamar County Genealogical Society and kept that position until 2009 – guiding the society from a mere closet at Paris Junior College to a new facility in the old train depot on Bonham Street.
He held past memberships in the Lamar County Historical Society, the Sam Bell Maxey Camp Sons of Confederate Veterans and past chairman of the Lamar County Historical Commission.
In November 2023 he was awarded the Distinguished Service 2023 History Maker Of The Year award by the Lamar County Historical Commission.
On February 28, 2004 he married his loving wife Elishia Louise Dugger in front of the Culbertson Fountain on the Plaza in Paris. He is survived by her, his step-daughter Cheyenne Dawn Dearman, brother Randall Wayne Brothers and wife Deborah of Wylie. He is also survived by niece and nephews from his brother Randy: Kyle Wayne Brothers, and step nephew Brian Pennington Brothers and from his sister Marsha: Kenneth Wayne Thorn Jr., and Brady DeAnn Thorn.
Surviving also are aunts and uncles, Louise Brothers of Augusta, GA; Sharon and Gary Lynch of Clarksville; and Ann LaRue.
He was preceded in death by his mother Artie Mae LaRue Brothers, his father Thomas Glynn Brothers, grandparents Ruby Irene Bierbowers LaRue Hohenberger and husband Joe Kenneth LaRue and step grandfather Manuel Herman Hohenberger of Honey Grove, Roy Pantha Brothers and Martha Jane Maddox Brothers of Powderly.
Services are scheduled for 10:00 a.m. Wednesday, Aug. 12 th at Bright-Holland Funeral Home with Rev. Susan Leddy officiating. The family will receive friends at the funeral home Tuesday from 5 – 7 p.m. He will be laid to rest beside hundreds of his cousins in Long Cemetery in Powderly where private graveside services will be held following the funeral. Casket bearers will be: Tony Shupp, Ricky Middlebrook, Tanner Middlebrook, Kanyon Williams, James Lee, and Daniel Lee. Honorary bearers will be: Donzell Jones, Grady Middlebrook, and Cooper Middlebrook.
His only regret in life was that he was sorry that he was not given enough time on this earth to record and preserve more Lamar County history for posterity. To leave a message or tribute for the family please visit www.brighthollandfuneralhome.com
