By Thomas A. Parmalee
Jimmy Lucas has a title he rarely uses.
Yes, he owns one of the largest independent funeral homes in North Texas, but if you ask the 55-year-old how he sees himself, he chooses a different word.
“I don’t really think of myself as the owner,” he said. “I feel more like I’m the caretaker.”
That single word reveals much about the sixth-generation funeral director from Fort Worth. To him, Lucas Funeral Homes, which traces its roots all the way back to 1860 when his great-great-great-grandfather, Wingate H. Lucas, began selling pine boxes from his wagon and homestead, isn’t simply a business to be managed. Rather, it’s a family legacy that’s been temporarily entrusted to his care – one that’s been woven into his life from the day he was born.
“If I got into trouble at home,” Jimmy recalled, “the default punishment was to get dropped off at the funeral home.”
Jimmy’s father would rotate which of his four children stayed overnight with him while he was on call, and Jimmy remembers those evenings as some of the most meaningful experiences of his childhood.
“We actually argued over whose turn it was,” he said. “Looking back, it was such a gift. Dad would wake me up if he had to go out on a call and tell me, ‘If you need me, just knock on the embalming room door.’ At the time it just seemed normal. Looking back now, I realize how incredibly fortunate I was.”
Those nights taught him something that couldn’t be learned in mortuary school. Funeral service wasn’t simply about caring for the dead. It was about showing up for families when they needed someone most.
More than 50 years later, Jimmy still carries those lessons with him every day.
Today, he’s the full owner of the family business, which serves about 3,600 families annually through 13 funeral homes and two cremation operations with a team of roughly 135 coworkers. He is also co-founder of TeamTango AI, an artificial intelligence platform developed specifically for funeral service, serves as a trustee of the Funeral Service Foundation, and is one of the colorful personalities on The Graveyard Shift, the popular podcast sponsored by Passare.
A Story That Began Long Before He Was Born
Jimmy is quick to point out that his business wasn’t simply handed down from one generation to the next.
His father, Jim Lucas, who still comes to work almost every day, sold their four family funeral homes to Service Corporation International in 1984, a decision that weighed heavily on him for years. When Jimmy urged his dad to return to funeral service as an owner, the family wasn’t reclaiming a thriving family empire. They were starting over.
“We didn’t inherit a debt-free business,” Jimmy said. “We started from scratch.”
The opportunity came when one of the family’s former funeral homes became available for purchase. Acquiring it required purchasing additional locations as part of a package deal, but it represented something much larger than real estate.
It represented a second chance.
Over the next quarter century, Lucas Funeral Homes expanded steadily through acquisitions, new construction and careful reinvestment. At one point the company operated 22 locations before the family made the difficult decision to reduce its footprint and focus on markets where leadership could remain closely connected to each funeral home.
“Running funeral homes several hours away wasn’t my strength,” Jimmy explained. “I like to be able to drive to a location if I need to. I like checking on people. That’s not fair to those communities if I can’t be present.”
The decision reflected a philosophy that shines through if you talk to Lucas for more than a few minutes: Growth isn’t his priority — providing excellent service to families is what drives him.
“I’m not one of those people who says we’ll never buy another funeral home or we’ll never sell one,” he said. “Every decision has to answer one question: What’s best for our families and for our coworkers?”
Choosing Funeral Service
People often assume someone born into six generations of funeral service simply followed the family tradition.
Jimmy smiles when he hears that.
“I actually think I found funeral service instead of funeral service finding me,” he said.
As a boy, he imagined becoming a bush pilot in Alaska. Later he thought about becoming a firefighter or ambulance driver. Helping people always appealed to him, but funeral service wasn’t necessarily the destination.
A defining moment came while he was working as a YMCA camp director while in college.
One afternoon a young boy arrived with burns on his arm.
“It became obvious those injuries weren’t an accident,” Jimmy said.
The experience changed his life.
He returned to school, switched his major to social work and became a Child Protective Services investigator in New Mexico after graduating from Stephen F. Austin State University. Newly married, he and his wife, Jennifer, packed their bags and headed west as she pursued graduate studies.
Jimmy immersed himself in helping children and families face some of life’s darkest moments.
“I met some incredible people doing social work,” he said. “Those years taught me empathy. They taught me how to meet people where they are.”
Although he loved the work, another opportunity emerged when his father, who had sold the family business but still worked in funeral service, invited him to join Purple Cross, introducing funeral homes to its preneed funding programs.
He quickly discovered he wasn’t a very good preneed salesperson. He also realized something else, however.
“I remember looking around during these meetings and thinking, ‘I love these people,’” he said. “And thinking, why aren’t we doing this?'”
He walked into his father’s office and asked a question that would change both of their lives: “Would you ever consider owning funeral homes again?”
Jimmy suspects his father carried a heavy heart after selling the family’s business years earlier.
“He didn’t hesitate,” he said.
And neither did Jimmy.
Within months, he enrolled at the Dallas Institute of Funeral Service. More importantly, he discovered that the profession he’d grown up around was exactly where he was meant to spend the rest of his life.
“I never felt pushed into funeral service,” he said. “It happened very organically.”
The Sacred Trust
Spend enough time talking with Jimmy Lucas and certain phrases begin to repeat themselves.
Families first.
Serve thy neighbor.
Sacred trust.
The last of those may be the one that he focuses on the most.
“What we do is a sacred trust,” he said. “Families invite us into one of the hardest days of their lives. That isn’t something I ever want to take lightly.”
That philosophy influences decisions large and small.
As cremation became increasingly common, Jimmy grew uncomfortable relying on outside crematories. Outsourcing conflicted with his belief that families deserved uninterrupted care, custody and control.
Building a crematory, however, proved far more complicated than he imagined: He bought a former warehouse that he discovered had no natural gas service — and it also needed some environmental cleanup and structural repairs so floors could support cremation equipment weighing more than 25,000 pounds.
Jimmy has learned to laugh at some of his setbacks.
“I’ve become successful because I failed a lot,” he said. “I learned what not to do.”
Today, Lucas Funeral Homes operates two cremation centers, including a large metropolitan operation with three cremators. Looking back, Jimmy believes every obstacle ultimately strengthened the operation.
“You don’t learn much when everything goes according to plan,” he said.
From Management to Leadership
If there is one area where Jimmy believes funeral service can continue to improve, it is leadership.
Early in his career, he describes himself as a manager.
Today he avoids the word entirely.
“We don’t have managers,” he said. “We have location leaders.”
The distinction isn’t cosmetic.
“A manager manages a business. A leader leads people,” he said.
Several years ago, Jimmy eliminated management positions and invited every existing manager to apply for leadership roles instead. It represented far more than a title change. It reflected an entirely different philosophy.
His expectations are simple: Location leaders are responsible for serving families exceptionally well while creating environments where coworkers (he cringes when he hears them described as “employees”) feel supported, respected and empowered.
“I’m never going to ask someone to do something I wouldn’t do myself,” Jimmy said. “And I don’t care whether you’ve been here one day or 40 years. I want your feedback.”
He rejects the idea that continuing education should be viewed as nothing more than a licensing requirement.
“We’ve invested heavily in leadership development and professional training because families deserve that,” he said.
He also has a nuanced view of what funeral professionals do.
“The what never changes,” he observed. “The what is caring for families with compassion, dignity and being fully present during profound loss … but the how has to keep evolving.”
He added, “Tradition is about keeping the old promises — not the old methods.”
Learning from Hospice
Some of Jimmy’s most influential business lessons didn’t come from funeral service at all.
Several years ago, his organization owned a hospice.
“My favorite takeaway wasn’t the business,” he said. “It was the people.”
Watching chaplains, nurses and bereavement counselors continue serving families for months after a death left a lasting impression.
“Hospice is required to provide bereavement care for 13 months,” Jimmy said. “Why don’t funeral homes do that?”
He went on to answer his own question.
“Probably because we’re not required to,” he said.
Jimmy believes that’s a missed opportunity, which is why this fall, his brother-in-law, Boyd Shannon, will join Lucas Funeral Homes as director of grief support, leading an expanded program designed to maintain meaningful relationships with families long after the funeral has ended.
“We don’t want our last interaction to be handing someone a death certificate and their loved one’s cremated remains,” Jimmy said. “We want to continue walking alongside them.”
It’s another expression of what he calls the sacred trust.
Solving a Problem Instead of Chasing Technology
Artificial intelligence was never part of Jimmy’s business plan.
Like many of his innovations, TeamTango AI emerged because a practical problem demanded a solution.
In 2015 Lucas Funeral Homes launched an online cremation brand, SimpleCremation.org, built around transparent pricing. Rather than advertising impossibly low prices and adding fees later, Lucas wanted families to know exactly what they would pay.
“We advertised one price,” Jimmy said. “That was the price.”
Consumers appreciate the honesty, but they also have questions before they buy, which has led employees to spend lots of time answering repetitive phone calls, explaining pricing and walking families through online arrangements.
While discussing the challenge with longtime friend Jeff Chen, Jimmy described his vision for an intelligent virtual assistant capable of handling routine conversations while seamlessly transferring more complex situations to licensed professionals.
Chen returned with a working prototype.
“My mouth dropped,” Jimmy said.
That moment led the two men to start a new company, TeamTango AI, which according to its website is an “AI suite built to support specifically for cremation providers and funeral homes — answering calls, assisting website visitors, scheduling appointments and supporting families around the clock without replacing the personal care that makes your business unique.”
The pricing is simple and easy to understand: It costs about $1.50 per minute.
“Most calls end up costing about $3,” Jimmy said. “And that’s about half of what most answering services cost – and everything is included. We wanted to make this affordable.”
He’s careful, however, not to oversell artificial intelligence.
“I don’t think AI will ever be a licensed funeral director or embalmer,” he said.
Nor does he believe it should.
Instead, he views technology as another tool that allows funeral professionals to spend more meaningful time where they’re needed most — with families.
“If technology gives our coworkers more time to care for people, then it’s doing exactly what it’s supposed to do,” he said.
The People Who Shaped Him
Ask Jimmy about mentors, and he doesn’t begin with famous industry leaders.
He begins with family.
His father remains active in the business at age 80, serving as what Jimmy affectionately calls “our ambassador.”
“He still comes in every day. He loves people,” he said.
His grandmother, the late Mildred N. Lucas, may have left the deepest impression.
Licensed at a time when funeral service was overwhelmingly male, she helped preserve the family’s business after losing both her husband and later her son. She worked funeral services until the day before she died at age 96.
He noted that his late mom, Taresa Lucas, who did not work in the family business, was amazing.
“She was known as Mother Taresa for her kind and beautiful spirit,” he said. “Also a social worker, she was the magic and the glue to raising us kids and making everything work.”
Another mentor arrived unexpectedly in mortuary school.
The late Lawrence Hammond, a retired Baptist minister beginning a second career in funeral service, became both colleague and close friend.
“He taught me something I’ll never forget,” Jimmy said.
When Jimmy worried about balancing work and raising young children, Hammond offered him a profound insight.
“He said, ‘Kids spell love T-I-M-E,'” Jimmy said.
He still carries those words today.
“That changed how I led my family and eventually how I led this company,” he said.
Stewardship
Two years ago, Jimmy became sole owner of the company after purchasing his father’s remaining ownership interest.
Many people congratulated him, but Lucas didn’t feel like celebrating.
“I felt the weight,” he said.
Not because of the financial responsibility, but because of what the business represents.
He sees himself as one chapter in a story that began generations before him and, he hopes, will continue generations after him.
There are other family members who work in the business to help him carry the load, including his brother, Bobby Lucas (who works at the firm as a funeral director), and numerous extended family members. Jimmy’s two children have not expressed a desire to work in the business. “But never say never,” he said. “At first, I had no desire to do this.”
Long term, Jimmy’s vision is not limited to family ownership.
He hopes to create a structure in which coworkers eventually become meaningful owners alongside the Lucas family, ensuring the organization remains independent while rewarding the people who helped build it.
“This business has always been bigger than one person,” he said.
A Promise that Remains
Funeral service is unlike most professions because its emotional weight accumulates quietly over time.
“We take on a little bit of every family’s grief,” Jimmy said.
The challenge isn’t avoiding that burden.
It’s learning how to carry it without allowing it to become overwhelming.
He believes funeral professionals must become as intentional about caring for themselves as they are about caring for the families they serve.
Healthy conversations, time with family, faith and friendships are among the things anyone working in funeral service must nurture and cherish.
Perhaps that’s why he so fondly remembers his time as a child, learning lessons about compassion, presence and service at the funeral home.
More than 166 years after Wingate H. Lucas first sold pine boxes from a wagon on the Texas prairie, the family business continues to evolve. The buildings are newer. The technology is more sophisticated. Artificial intelligence now answers some phone calls that once required a person.
But the promise remains unchanged.
Families still need someone to answer the phone in the middle of the night.
They still need someone to guide them through unimaginable loss.
Jimmy Lucas believes that responsibility belongs to every funeral professional who is fortunate enough to earn a family’s trust.
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