Mr. Sam Petty
With his family at his bedside, lifelong Carthage resident Mr. Sam Petty, was pronounced deceased at 1:54 a.m. Wednesday morning October 28, 2026 by Gentiva Hospice of Livingston, at his Riverside Drive North home. He was first diagnosed with kidney cancer on September 22nd.
Mr. Petty is at the Carthage Chapel of Sanderson Funeral Home and will be cremated at the Cumberland Family Services in Algood. A memorial Celebration of Life will be announced at a later date.
Sam attended Castle Heights Military Academy and received his degree in pharmacy from Mercer University School of Pharmacy in Atlanta, GA in 1979.
Born Samuel Glen Petty in Nashville on July 17, 1955, he was one of two sons of the late well-known Carthage Physician, Dr. David Gordon Petty Sr. who died at the age of 101 on January 24, 2022 and Asheville, North Carolina native, the former Betty Lou Fowler who died at the age of 64 on April 24, 1991.
On August 27, 1976 he was united in marriage to the former Pamela (Pam) White. At the Carthage United Methodist Church.
Prior to attending Mercer, he attended Tennessee Technological University and Vanderbilt University.
He first established the Clinic Pharmacy in Carthage in 1980.
He later purchased the Gainesboro Drug Company on the square in Gainesboro in 1992 and operated there until his retirement.
He was active in the Jackson County Chamber of Commerce where he served as chairman and was instrumental in bringing new restaurants and other business to downtown.
He was a Tennessee licensed real estate agent, having established Upper Cumberland Real Estate in 2002 in Gainesboro.
At the time of his death, he was an associate at Heartland Real Estate in Carthage.
Sam had been a member of the Carthage Town Council since 2018 when first elected and was elected to his second term in 2022 and was on the ballot to be re-elected in 2026.
Surviving in addition to his wife Pam, of just over fifty years, are his daughter, Dr. Lindsey Petty Dixon and husband T. J. of the Tanglewood Community, Matt Petty of East Nashville; grandchildren; Ella and Wyatt Dixon of the Tanglewood Community; brother Dr. David Gordon Petty Jr. and wife Laurie of Knoxville.
