Michael Charles “Mike” Perry, a resident of San Angelo and formerly of Alpine, died early on Saturday, July 13, 2024, at Shannon Medical Center. He was 78.
Mike will be cremated; there will be no funeral service. He had been an avid advocate of organ donation since he received a new heart and a new kidney on March 20-21, 2013, at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas. He was exceptionally fortunate and proud to be approved for the double transplants, especially since he was 67 years old at the time.
Mike was born June 14, 1946, (Flag Day) in Oklahoma City to Alla Virginia Sparkman Perry and Robert Charles “Bob” Perry, who had been University of Oklahoma students. His early years were spent in various Oklahoma towns, where Bob worked at drugstores as a registered pharmacist.
When Mike was in elementary school, the family — by now with more sons — moved to Wichita Falls. Mike relished his childhood there and in later years recounted numerous tales of misadventure and fun and excitement with neighborhood pals.
The Perrys later moved to Odessa, where Bob was based as a pharmaceutical representative for Merck Sharp and Dohme, and Virginia taught at Permian High School. It was at that school that Mike served as a proud member of the award-winning Permian HS concert and marching bands. He also was a longtime fan of the Mojo football teams, suffering when they had losing seasons and cheering like crazy during the good ones.
After graduating from Permian High in 1964, Mike attended the University of Texas where, as he often noted, he majored in fraternity and partying. Despite not getting his B.A. from UT, he remained a devout Burnt Orange Longhorn for the rest of his life. He also attended Angelo State University and became a rabid Rams fan. While attending ASU, Mike worked as a reporter in the sports department at the San Angelo Standard-Times, where he met his future wife, also a reporter. Mike and Cynthia M. “Cindy” McBride were married December 30, 1971, at First United Methodist Church. They remained in San Angelo for several years before moving to the Dallas-Fort Worth area, where Cindy was a copy editor at the Dallas Times Herald (and later at the Dallas Morning News), and Mike was working at the Fort Worth Star-Telegram as the entertainment/arts editor and later as business editor and sports editor.
After a while, the Perrys got the middle-age itch and set off to see and live in other states — California, Oklahoma, Mississippi and Alabama — before returning to Texas. After a couple of sojourns in Bryan-College Station and Corpus Christi, in 2007 the Perrys moved to the beautiful Far West Texas town of Alpine, where Mike became publisher of the Alpine Avalanche newspaper. Not long after taking on that job, Mike’s heart began to fail and he became medically disabled. But, refusing to be thwarted by a pesky old ailing heart, Mike decided that he still wanted to write and that the Big Bend region needed an independent source of news. He created the Internet-only newspaper The Alpine Daily Planet and remained as its publisher/executive editor until his organ transplants.
In Alpine, Mike’s favorite pastime was to roam the sidelines at Alpine HS Fightin’ Bucks and Sul Ross Lobos’ football games as well as covering the schools’ baseball, volleyball and basketball contests. He had a tremendous love for sports, especially high school and college football. Actually, he loved all football but the idiots (as he called them) at the professional level gave him hives.
Of all his pastimes or hobbies, reading was always No. 1. Even after writing and editing stories, Mike would find one or two or three good books to devour. His interests ran from history to sci-fi to biographies to politics to really GOOD Western novels — Elmer Kelton and Larry McMurtry were tops on his list.
In their middle age years, Mike and Cindy were avid travelers and bicyclists. They loved long-distance rides, traveling on lots of Texas roadways, visiting many states and riding the entire Oregon coast three times. They also bicycled around the Canadian provinces of Nova
Scotia and British Columbia, and had plans to tour Europe on their bicycles before failing health intervened. After Mike’s transplants, the couple decided to return to San Angelo where they had met and married.
Survivors include his wife, Cindy Perry; his brothers and their wives, David and Rosie Perry of Ormond Beach, Florida.; Jim and Wanda Perry of Lumberton, Texas; and Phil and Neleatha Perry of Comfort, Texas; his uncle and aunt, Gene and Carlene Sparkman of The Woodlands, Texas; three nieces and three nephews and their families: Jackie Perry of Jacksonville, Florida, Trish Gately of Austin, Jessica Latino of Lumberton, Robbie Perry of Comfort, Zach Perry of San Antonio, and Nick Perry of Dallas.
Mike wanted everyone to be an organ donor. He also would have appreciated memorials or donations in his name to the Alpine Public Library in Alpine, Texas; the Alpine Humane Society in Alpine; the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas; his alma maters the University of Texas in Austin and Angelo State University; or the cause of your choice but only if it enriches or aids humans and animals.