Terry Joe Owens

March 23, 1951 – August 14, 2026

Terry Joe Owens, “Giggo,” age 75, passed away on Friday, August 14, 2026, leaving behind a lifetime of memories and a legacy built upon faith, family, hard work, and music.

Visitation for Terry Joe Owens will be Sunday, August 16, 2026, from 6PM – 9PM at New Hope Baptist Church in Dyer, Tennessee. Funeral service will be held Monday, August 17, 2026, at 11AM at the New Hope Baptist Church in Dyer, Tennessee. Interment will be at New Salem Baptist Church Cemetery in Mason Hall, Tennessee.

Terry was born on March 23, 1951, in the Mason Hall community of Obion County, Tennessee, the son of the late Frank and Elizabeth Green Owens.

Those who knew Terry knew there was nothing quiet or reserved about the way he lived life. Terry was outgoing, friendly, and genuinely enjoyed being around people. He could carry on a conversation with just about anyone and rarely met a stranger. Whether at church, at work, around town, or at a family gathering, Terry enjoyed people, and people enjoyed Terry.

He was also a hard-working man. Terry retired from the Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company after 35 years of dedicated service, where he built lasting friendships and earned the respect of those who worked alongside him. Work was never simply about a paycheck for Terry. It was about responsibility. He believed a man worked hard, took care of his family, kept his word, and did what needed to be done. That work ethic was something he carried throughout his life and something he passed along to his sons and grandchildren.

But as important as work was to Terry, his family always came first.

Terry deeply loved his wife, Susan “Darlene” Owens. They shared a life together filled with family, church, work, music, ordinary days, difficult days, and countless good ones. Their marriage produced a family that became the great joy of Terry’s life. Darlene’s passing in January 2021 left an empty place that could never truly be filled, and Terry continued to carry his love for her with him.

He was tremendously proud of his two sons, Bradley and Brian, but becoming a grandfather brought an entirely new kind of joy into his life.

Terry wasn’t simply a grandfather who loved his grandchildren from a distance. He was involved.

His four grandchildren—Brock and Ava, Avery and Brady—were among the greatest blessings of his life. He wanted to know what they were doing. He wanted to be there. Their accomplishments made him proud, their lives interested him, and spending time with them mattered to him. They knew their grandfather loved them, and that love will remain with them long after today.

Terry’s other great love was music, and for much of his life, music and his Christian faith were inseparable.

Terry was an ordained minister of music who faithfully served the Lord for many years through music ministry. He served as Minister of Music at First Baptist Church in Kenton and New Hope Baptist Church in Dyer, and throughout the years he also shared his ministry through countless revivals and special services.

For Terry, being a minister of music was never just standing in front of a congregation and leading songs on Sunday morning. It meant choir practices, Sunday mornings, Sunday nights, revivals, funerals, special services, Christmas programs, Easter services, and countless other occasions when people gathered together to worship.

Week after week and year after year, Terry stood before congregations and encouraged people to sing about the faith that shaped his own life.

There is no way to know how many hymns he led, how many choir practices he attended, how many church services he participated in, how many revivals he helped lead, or how many people heard him sing during those years. But his family knows that music ministry was not simply something Terry did.

It was part of who he was.

Through music, Terry was able to combine his outgoing personality, his love for people, and his faith in Jesus Christ. He used the talent God gave him to serve others and to point people toward the Lord.

And while his church family knew him as an ordained minister of music, his coworkers knew him as a hard worker, his friends knew him as an outgoing and friendly man, and his community knew him as Terry, the people closest to him knew the roles that mattered most to him:

Dad. Grandfather/Giggo. Husband. Devoted Family Man.

Terry loved his family fiercely. He enjoyed being involved in their lives and was proud of the people they became. He understood that some of life’s greatest moments aren’t necessarily the big occasions. They are the conversations, meals, ballgames, church services, holidays, visits, laughter, and ordinary moments spent together.

Those ordinary moments don’t feel ordinary anymore.

Terry is survived by his two sons, Bradley Owens and wife Alicia, and Brian Owens and wife Alisha; and four grandchildren, Brock Owens, Avery Owens, Ava Owens, and Brady Owens, each of whom he loved dearly.

He was preceded in death by his beloved wife, Darlene Owens; his parents, Frank and Elizabeth Green Owens; his brother, Bobby Owens; and his sisters, Peggy Harrell and Mary Edith Owens.

There is tremendous sadness in saying goodbye to Terry. But for his family, there is also tremendous comfort.

For decades, Terry sang about Heaven.

He sang about grace.

He sang about salvation.

He sang about the promises of God.

He sang about the hope Christians have beyond this life.

And those weren’t simply words printed in a hymnal to Terry. They were what he believed.

Today, his family takes comfort in knowing that the faith Terry sang about for so many years was the faith by which he lived.

The voice that led so many others in worship is silent here now, but his family believes that Terry has finally experienced the promise behind every hymn he ever sang about Heaven.

And perhaps there is something especially fitting about that.

After a lifetime of leading others in songs about going home, Terry is finally home.

His life cannot be measured simply by 75 years on a calendar. It is measured in a marriage, two sons, two daughters-in-law, four grandchildren, 35 years of hard work at Goodyear, countless friendships, churches served, revivals, songs sung, people encouraged, and a family that knew without question that he loved them.

That is a life that mattered.

That is a legacy worth remembering.

And that is a song that will continue through the lives of the family he leaves behind.

A life of faith.

A life of family.

A life of hard work.

A life filled with music.

A life well lived.

In lieu of flowers, the family requests donations be made to New Hope Baptist Church in Dyer or Union University in Jackson, Tennessee.