On Thursday, January 20, 2022, Tom Steele, passed away in Oklahoma City. He was 93 years old. No memorial service is immediately planned. The family will notify friends and loved ones personally and via Facebook with the details for a Springtime memorial in OKC honoring Toms legacy. Tom is survived by his two sons, Thomas "Lindy" Steele and Timothy Steele. He was preceded in death by his parents, Loyd Steele Sr. "Pappy" and Sarah Steele; his brother, Loyd Steele, Jr.; and his wife, Evelyn Steele. A native son of Oklahoma, Tom Steele was raised in Marlow, where his family operated the Steele funeral home and ambulance service in the 1930s and 1940s. Tom could best be described as having a cowboys heart and an engineers mind. Tom inherited his familys inventive, engineering capabilities, possessing a lifelong desire to explore new ways to build anything from a pair of spurs to the most complicated automated machinery. He had a humble demeanor that belied his many abilities, interests, and accomplishments. He loved animals, particularly horses, and he learned to ride and rope as a boy. At 15, he drove ambulances and hearses because most men were at war. At 17, he learned to fly which became his passion and vocation. In the early 1960s, Tom was a company pilot for Wiley Stuart Machinery in Oklahoma City. The owner, Bill Swisher, expressed a desire to move from leasing equipment to fabricating automated roadbuilding machinery. Tom told Bill he knew how it could be done and assembled a team that included his father, Loyd, and uncle, Gordon Spivey. Bill and Tom enlisted many others to create CMI, an international roadbuilding equipment manufacturer. This work took Tom, and often Evelyn, to Europe, Great Britain, and The Peoples Republic of China in the 1970s and 80s. At CMI, Tom headed product development and his work was the source of many of the companys patents as they produced the Autograde and Roto-Mill. He left CMI for a brief time to start his own company, Skywitch, with Ralph Gilstrap, and returned to CMI until he retired in 1996. In his life, Tom was a roughneck, calf-roper, pilot, airplane jig-builder, engineer, inventor, entrepreneur, motorcycle builder, blacksmith, silversmith, and horse trainer. In his eighties he learned to convert cars to run on natural gas and built his own CNG compressor for his home. Also in his eighties, he competed for points in national cutting events and Toms custom spurs and bits are widely admired and sought after because of their beautiful craftsmanship. Tom married his childhood sweetheart and love of his life, Evelyn Rollins, in 1948. They remained married until her death in 2005. In addition to their two sons, Tom and Evelyn had three grandsons, Sam, Nicholas "Ray" and Leo Steele. They also raised Evelyns great niece, Emily Porter. Tom was a devoted father and grandfather who was generous with his time and knew how to have fun with kids, partly because he had an adventurous streak and knew what boys loved to do. After Evelyns death, Tom met Peggy Cole and they were companions until her death in 2014. Evelyn used to tell of the first time she noticed Tom in grade school. He had a little wind-up clock which he had removed the gears from, so the hands would spin around the clocks face. He came to her, performed his clock trick, and said, "My, how time flies!" No truer words have been spoken; he will be greatly missed. . No Services