Page 105 - Lubbock Senior Link Magazine Fall 2019- Online Magazine

world war ii
that houses the Rainbow army air corps
Room, a place where
displaced children can be
ministered to until placed
by Child Protective Services, and he is still on its
Community Partners Board.
J.W. has been involved in prison ministry for
many years and still is. He is part of a team that
teaches New Life Behavior on Friday evenings
at the Formby Unit in Plainview. Hamby also
on inactive duty, where he remained for donated portable baptistries for the Plainview
approximately nine years, leaving the service prisons and over 400 men have been baptized in
as a Captain. When asked what he did after the the past five years at the Wheeler Unit, next door
service, he grinned and said, “How much paper to Formby.
have you got?” He tried to recall all the places Hamby went on the inaugural 2012 South Plains
he’d worked: Firestone, G.M. Diesel, a plow Honor Flight with six other Plainview veterans.
manufacturer, a life insurance company, another J.W. is only one of the six World War II vets still
diesel business and another plow company. living, but he is living well and contributing
All of these jobs led to what J.W. had always much. He is a gentle, giving soul who wants no
wanted to do, which was start up a wholesale accolades for himself but who hopes to blaze a
farm equipment and supplies business. He met trail that’s a light for those who follow.
Dorothy Jean Merrifield after he got out of the
service, and they married on December 21, 1946.
They had one son and three daughters: Larry,
Katrina, Jill, and Jan. Dot passed away from
multiple sclerosis in 1991.

Hamby’s dream of owning his own business
came true in 1954 when he started The Hamby
Company. He sold to farm equipment dealers
all over the South Plains, eastern New Mexico,
Oklahoma, Kansas and Nebraska. In 1960,
he started to manufacture farm equipment
specifically for southwestern U.S. farmers.
This equipment was always high quality and
durable. At the height of his business, he had
140 employees. He sold his highly successful
business to Crustbuster Mfg. out of Dodge City,
Kansas in 1989 after 35 years in business. He
said he had “been blessed with opportunities
in business his whole life.” J.W. owns several
business properties in Plainview, has served on
the Board of Lubbock Christian University for
45 years and was named Plainview’s Chamber
of Commerce 2015 Man of the Year.

In describing J.W., the Chamber used the
words, “a man of deep, abiding faith.” He has
served as an elder for many years at Garland
Street Church of Christ and is now active at
Northwest Church of Christ in Plainview. He
was instrumental in providing the building

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