Billy Todd

FORT WORTH -- Billy Austin Todd, 78, passed away Wednesday, April 14, 2010.        Graveside service: Noon Saturday in Oakwood Cemetery in Fort Worth. Visitation: The family will receive friends 6 to 8 p.m. Friday at Lucas Funeral Home, 517 N. Sylvania Ave., Fort Worth.        Billy graduated from North Texas State University in 1950. He served with honor during the Korean War.        He started playing the clubs in the Fort Worth Stockyards in the late 1940s. He also played club and stage shows for Interstate Theaters. He opened Todd's Western Club in the Stockyards from 1958 to 1961. In the summer of 1964 he went on the road with Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys as a booking agent. He later played with B.D. Griffin and the Western Swing Band.        He went to work for Spinks Industries as a purchasing agent, working until the early 1980s. He moved on and went to work for Tarrant County as a precinct administrator for Precinct Four and later as a supervisor in the facilities management department. He retired in 1994.        He was the commander of American Legion Post 655 in Haltom City for over 10 years.        In 2000 he was inducted into the Cowtown Society of Western Music Hall of Fame as a hero of western swing music.        Survivors: Wife, Catherine Todd; children, Hoyt Coffey, Sissy Brown and Carl Todd; five grandchildren; and numerous great-grandchildren. To send flowers or a memorial gift to the family of Billy Todd please visit our Sympathy Store.