Michael was born in Santa Fe, New Mexico to Volney and Blanche Douglas. He grew up in the Phoenix area and graduated from North Phoenix High. He earned a degree in aeronautical technology at Arizona State University. As a young man, he worked on an Alaskan oil rig, and participated in oil exploration in Liberia, Italy, and Alaska. Later he worked as a charter pilot both in Arizona and Australia.

  In 1968, he married Kathleen Hale in Tempe and they eventually had four children. Just after the birth of their first child, they moved to Australia where Michael flew for several years as a charter pilot to the mineral exploration fields of Western Australia. He later taught high school science and math, both in Australia and in Arizona; his final teaching was at Bisbee High School and he retired in 2003.

  He was an avid gardener; he enjoyed shooting and helped develop the Sierra Vista Shooting range. He served on the Sierra Vista Airport Commission. His family joined him in hunting and fishing and camping, at one point driving their VW bus, pop-up trailer, and aluminum row boat from Sierra Vista to Alaska.

 He died of dementia in 2012.

Written and edited by Corbin Smith from obituary in the Cochise County Herald/Review, May 9, 2012, and information shared by Volney Douglas to familysearch.com.

Click below to return to:
History
A-D
E-H
I-P
Q-Z

SCS 10/6/26