Thomas Nolte

Tom was born in Detroit Michigan the oldest child of Erwin (Win) and Lillian (Lil) Nolte. He was raised in Columbia, South Carolina, and attended Duke University where he was proudly the "first person to graduate from Duke without passing his foreign language requirement". He attended the Medical University of South Carolina, and moved to Tucson, Arizona where he completed his residency in Psychiatry. He moved to Flagstaff, Arizona in 1980 where he joined the National Health Services Corps, serving most of northern Arizona, including much of the Navajo reservation. He married Kate in 1985, and adopted Meaghan the same year. They also had a son, Christopher, who died 3 months after he was born.

Tom was an avid fly fisherman and loved to take his dog Murphy to Lee's Ferry in his Westfalia where he would camp and stand in water barely above freezing to catch the perfect trout. When he reeled it in, his best friend (Murphy) was there to kiss the fish before Tom released the fish. They would then camp in his VW Westphalia (Westy).

Tom and Kate moved to Florida in 2001 to help care for his parents. He worked in Florida for a time before he started traveling for several months to work in the west; suspiciously most of those places had excellent trout streams. He would drive to the west in his "Westy" visiting Meaghan while she was in graduate school in Wyoming where he passed on his love of fly fishing.

In 2016 Tom retired, and two years later he and Kate moved to Rio Rancho, New Mexico. Where he they lived with their dogs Jack and Dillon, he enjoyed waking and using his battery operated scooter to take Dillon on runs.

On August 15, 2025 Tom passed away in Rust Hospital in Rio Rancho surrounded by family with cowboy music playing in the background. He was predeceased by both his parents, and his son. He is survived by his wife, daughter, two dogs, his two siblings, Linda (Barry) and Bill, and nephews and nieces Linda and Barry's sons, Scott, Derek, and Corey, and Bill's son Tate, Alex, and Spencer Nichols, Kirk Rohrig, and Sarah and Mathew Nichols.