Dr. Thomas Surbeck Nicoll, 81, of Au Sable Forks, New York, passed away on April 2, 2026. He was born on October 22, 1944, the son of Thomas B. and Marie (Surbeck) Nicoll.

Dr. Nicoll devoted nearly fifty years of his professional life to the people of Plattsburgh as a dentist, opening his practice and building it into something far greater than a dental office — it became a place where families were known across generations, where trust was earned and kept, and where patients felt genuinely cared for. Some traveled hundreds of miles to see him. He often spoke of the privilege of that work, of watching families grow and caring for patients who became, over the decades, something closer to community. His patients would say the feeling was mutual.

What many of those patients may not have known was that behind the steady hands and gentle manner was a gifted artist — one whose precision and creative sensibility extended far beyond the dental chair.

Music was another thread woven through every chapter of Tom's life. He brought it into his dental practice in the 1980s, outfitting each room with a Walkman so patients could slip on headphones and find calm in the chair — a small, thoughtful gesture that said everything about the kind of dentist he was. His taste was as wide and restless as the man himself, ranging from the driving intensity of heavy metal to the unhurried soul of Chris Stapleton and the deep roots of bluegrass. But the rock never left him. Paradise City by Guns N' Roses was his song — the one that filled the cab of his stick shift pickup truck and drove him through the weightlifting sessions he kept faithfully during his lunch hour, decade after decade. It played again at his bedside as he took his final breath. It was the perfect song for a man who lived at full volume and loved without reservation.

Tom's love of country was rooted in something real and hard-earned. He served in the United States Army, and his three-year station in Anchorage, Alaska, gave him far more than military training — it gave him a deep and abiding pride in his country and an enduring love for wild places and open wilderness that would shape his outdoor pursuits for the rest of his life. That same service-oriented mindset never left him. It shaped the way he cared for his patients, the way he showed up for his community, and the pride he took in raising children and grandchildren who carried that patriotic spirit forward. The flag that drapes his coffin is a fitting symbol of the man he was: steadfast, honorable, and unwavering in his values to the very end.

To know Tom was to know a man who was never still — not in body, and certainly not in mind. He possessed an intensely focused, restless spirit that demanded engagement, and he spent his life finding the pursuits worthy of it.

Fly fishing consumed him most completely — specifically the relentless pursuit of the perfect fly. He approached it with a scientist's curiosity as much as an angler's intuition, studying the water, observing the hatch, and famously examining the stomach contents of trout to understand precisely what they were feeding on. He returned to the Au Sable River season after season, decade after decade, always testing, always refining, never finished.

His passion for the outdoors carried him far from home waters. Tom fished and hunted from Maine to Montana, north to Alaska, and south to the Bahamas, treating each new landscape as both a challenge and a privilege. The pursuit of fin and feather was not a pastime — it was a defining part of who he was.

If those who knew him expected Tom to slow as he aged, he had other plans. Around the age of 60, he took up downhill mountain biking and whitewater kayaking with the same ferocity he had brought to everything else. He ran rapids in Montana and Idaho. He dropped waterfalls in North Carolina. He paddled local streams and rivers with what those close to him described simply as pure joy. He rode his motorcycle with that same spirit of freedom, feeling alive and ageless and took to commuting to work daily on a Kawasaki Ninja — proud of its efficiency, freedom, and gas mileage. He wore that practicality like a badge of honor. It was a feeling he had found the words for — a quote he kept close, which read: Life's journey is not to arrive at the grave safely in a well-preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, totally worn out, shouting — what a ride. Tom Nicoll lived that philosophy every single day.

He loved the trails at Whiteface Mountain Bike Park with a particular devotion. The gondola ride to the top was a ritual he cherished — and one he almost always marked by calling his son, sharing in the anticipation of the descent ahead. Those calls, full of excitement and connection, were among his happiest moments. The gondola was also his favorite way to share the mountain with his daughter and grandchildren when they visited, riding to the top together, the excitement building with every foot of elevation, the joy multiplied by the company of the people he loved most.

Dr. Nicoll is survived by his beloved wife of 55 years, Naomi; his daughter Laura O'Brien and her husband Tim; his son Matt Nicoll and his wife Kamden; and five grandchildren: Maggie, 17, Katie, 14, Charlie, 12, Adleigh, 9, and Emerson, 7.

Tom leaves behind a family who loved him fiercely, a community that was better for his presence, and a life lived exactly as he chose — with intensity, joy, and an open heart. As the final notes of Paradise City played and Tom slipped away, the song's closing words felt less like a farewell and more like a promise: take me home. Home, at last, to his beautiful daughter Jennifer, who had been waiting for him since 1994.

Calling hours will be held on Wednesday, April 8, 2026, from 4:00 to 7:00 p.m. at the R.W. Walker Funeral Home in Plattsburgh. A funeral service will be held at 11:00 a.m. on Thursday, April 9, 2026, at St. John's Church in Plattsburgh.

In lieu of flowers or donations, the family asks that you honor Tom’s memory in the small, meaningful ways he lived his life: pick up a piece of litter whenever you see one, take a walk in nature with someone you love, or plant something and watch it grow. He believed the world got better one small act at a time.

Funeral arrangements are entrusted to the R.W. Walker Funeral Home and Cremation Service, 69 Court Street, Plattsburgh, NY 12901.