Funeral services for Dr. Thomas Franklin Lear, Jr. M.D., 76, of Thomasville, Ga., will be held Thursday, Sept. 16 at First United Methodist Church in Thomasville. The Rev. Mike Huling Sr. will officiate and interment will be in Laurel Hill Cemetery in Thomasville.

The family will receive friends Wednesday, Sept. 15 from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. at Allen & Allen Funeral Home in Thomasville.

Born Sept. 7, 1934, in Camilla, Dr. Lear died Sunday, Sept. 12, 2010, at Archbold Hospital in Thomasville.

He was the son of the late Thomas F. Lear Sr. and Temperance Elizabeth Burson Lear. Dr. Lear practiced for 30 years in Thomasville and later in Bainbridge. He graduated from Mitchell County High School in 1951, and from the University of Georgia, where he majored in chemistry. He received his medical degree at the Medical College of Georgia in Augusta. Following medical school, he served as Lt. Commander on a destroyer in the U.S. Navy, sailing in the Mediterranean. After two years of active duty in the Navy, he trained in General Surgery at Piedmont Hospital in Atlanta. In 1969, Dr. Lear opened a private practice in General Surgery in Thomasville. Dr. Lear was an avid fisherman, boat builder, and tinkerer extraordinaire. For the last 20 years, he lived on his beloved farm outside Thomasville.

He was preceded in death by grandparents, Lucille Culpepper Burson and Judge Benjamin Thomas Burson.

Survivors include his wife, Jan Harrison Lear, of Thomasville, formerly of Tallahassee, Fla.; his son, Kevin Culpepper Lear of Thomasville and daughter, Stephanie Lear Henderson and her husband Ian of Atlanta, Ga.; his sister, Charlotte Clare Lear of Thomasville; step-daughters, Catherine Fleming Blair and her husband Brian and Holle Fleming Roberts and her husband Matt; and five grandchildren.

In lieu of flowers, the family requests that donations please be made to the American Cancer Society, P.O. Box 1201, Albany, GA 31702.

Allen and Allen Funeral Home in Thomasville is in charge of arrangements.