Billy Sam Martin
Billy Sam Martin, age 95, of Gibbon, passed away Friday, April 11, 2025, at Mt. Carmel Keens Memorial Home in Kearney. Funeral services will be 10:30 a.m. Friday, April 18, at the O’Brien Straatmann Redinger Funeral Home in Kearney. Interment will follow at Riverside Cemetery in Gibbon with military honors provided by American Legion Post #310 in conjunction with the Nebraska National Guard Funeral Honors Team. Visitation will be today (Thursday) from 5:00 to 7:00 p.m. at O’Brien Straatmann Redinger Funeral Home in Kearney.
In lieu of flowers, memorials are suggested to Bethel United Methodist Church, Kearney Noon Rotary or to Mt. Carmel Keens Memorial Home. Condolences may be shared online at www.osrfh.com. Services are entrusted to O’Brien Straatmann Redinger Funeral and Cremation Services.
Billy Sam Martin was born in Ada, Oklahoma, to Andrew Jackson and Sina Kathryn Anderson Martin, of Fitzhugh, Oklahoma, on November 1, 1929, the eighth in his family.
He attended grade school until the seventh grade at Fitzhugh, Oklahoma, and then seventh and eighth grade at Walker Consolidated District #3. He graduated from Pauls Valley, Oklahoma, high school in 1947, and attended Cameron Junior College in Lawton, Oklahoma, receiving an associate degree. He graduated from Oklahoma A and M in Stillwater, Oklahoma, in 1951 with a major in agriculture education and a minor in animal husbandry.
In 1951 he taught vocational agriculture in the Fleming, Colorado, high school for one year before entering the U. S. Army. He was inducted into the U. S. Army and served from 1952-1954, stationed at Camp Roberts, California; Ft. Benning, Georgia; and Fort Bragg, North Carolina. He served in the 77th and 99th Special Forces Units. He completed jump school in Ft. Benning, Georgia. He was discharged in 1954 and accepted a job as vocational agriculture teacher in Cozad.
On June 18, 1955, he married Janice Randall and the couple moved to Gibbon where he taught vocational agriculture for three years. In 1958 he became a district sales representative for the Ralston Purina Company with an area in Central Nebraska, and the couple moved to Fairbury for one year and then to Holdrege. Daughter, Jill Renee, was born in 1963 in Holdrege. In 1968 the family moved to Grinnell, Iowa, where daughter, Sina Linn, was born. At that time Bill served as a district sales manager for Allied Mills, Wayne Feeds. In 1972, a feed and grain business, Grinnell Feeders Service, was purchased and he continued in that business until moving to the Gibbon area in 1981, where the family established a home northwest of Gibbon.
Memberships in organizations included Rotary Club in Grinnell, Iowa, and Kearney; Iowa Grain and FeedBoard; Chamber of Commerce in Grinnell, Iowa; and membership and leadership offices in United Methodist Churches in the communities where the family lived.
He is survived by his wife, Janice; daughter and son-inlaw, Sina and Michael; grandchild, Alycia “Auggie” Lehn; and a host of nieces, nephews and other family.
He was pre-deceased by his parents; brothers, Jack, Barclay and Raymond; sisters, Thelma, Laura, Josephine, and Oberia; and daughter, Jill Renee.