Michael Beckett

Michael Lewis Beckett, 78, Lawrence, Kansas, passed away peacefully Wednesday, February 10, 2021. Michael was born September 26, 1942, in Garden City, Kansas, to Vincent and Lelia Scheer Beckett. He was a proud Garden City High School Buffalo, graduating in 1960. Vincent died when Michael was 14, and soon, Raymond Brown entered his life as a beloved step-father. As a boy, Michael delivered newspapers on his bicycle, and then became a budding Disc Jockey at the local radio station. He attended Garden City Community College and Washburn University for a couple of semesters, active in band and choir, and and then left to serve our country for a short time in the US Navy. Before leaving for the Navy, on July 1, 1962, Michael attended a Box Social hosted by the Wesleyan Foundation at Washburn University. While there, he set eyes upon the most beautiful girl, at 5’2” with eyes of blue, named Helen Griffith. He was 19 and she was 18. He bought her box dinner for $6.25 and their relationship grew quickly. In August, Michael joined the Navy but injured his knee and was given a medical discharge just as his unit was being sent to Vietnam. He returned to Kansas. Immediately, he sought out Helen, who was now a freshman living in Sellards Scholarship Hall at the University of Kansas. He proposed in late September and they were married just a few months later, on February 10, 1963, at the Topeka Wesleyan Foundation. It was the start of 58 years of a lifetime together! They honeymooned and worked briefly in Scott City, KS, and then moved to Dumas, Texas, where he began a career as a radio announcer. After a year, they moved back to the state of Kansas, adding to their family at each small-town stop. Their homes were first in Dumas, Texas, (Tandy) followed by Ottawa (Sean), Lawrence (Amy), Independence (Peter), and Oberlin, Kansas (Rachel), with short stints in upstate New York, Sublette, KS, and Garden City, KS. Throughout all these moves, he and Helen introduced Jesus Christ to each of their five children. With home church services, they nurtured the children’s young faith and set them each upon their own life path of following Christ – a legacy that continues today. In Oberlin, he was hired as the program director for KOMC-TV. He reported the evening news and the local weather and produced commercials. The family remained in Oberlin for six years. In 1976, the family of seven moved to Topeka, Kansas, where the children grew and became active at First Baptist Church. With his knowledge of sound equipment, Michael launched Sonship Productions and began recording sermons on cassette tapes for home-bound congregants. He also taught his sons to run the audio equipment for the worship services. His children all sang in the choirs, played in the bell choirs, and provided occasional special quintets and other music, and this is where he became the champion of spectators! Throughout his life, he faithfully attended countless concerts, plays, programs, graduations, and sporting events in which his children and grandchildren participated, beaming and telling everyone seated around him just who they were there to see and how proud he was of them! After each event, that person was always greeted with, “Did you see me grinnin’?” And we could! When the family first moved to Topeka, Helen began nursing school and Michael launched the next phase of his life as the director of ambulance services at up Stormont-Vail. His duties included development of local EMS educational programs. During that time, he was involved in helping start the 911 service. He also got his certification to be an EMT instructor coordinator. At the same time, Michael became ordained as a pastor and marriage and grief counselor, launching anew venture, Beckett Ministries, International. As Beckett Ministries evolved, he moved into another phase of his life as a disaster relief worker with first the Red Cross and then with Christian Disaster Relief Services, which he co-founded. When disasters hit anywhere in the world, Michael traveled wherever he was needed, throughout the USA, as well as to Nicaragua, Honduras, Guam, and Moscow. His work required extended periods of time from home, but he never failed to assure his family that he loved each one of them. They were proud that his service to others was comforting countless and was sowing seeds of love and grace to those deeply suffering. His last disaster reliefs were when he assisted in the wake of 9/11 in New York City and helped the families of American Airlines Flight 587, which went down on November 12th that same year with no survivors. Those disasters took a toll on him, and he opted to retire and focus more on his ministry at home. Helen and Mike then took over “Rose’s House of Flowers” a flower, gift, and coffee shop in Garden City, KS. He was gifted at conversing with others and he loved ministering to anyone who came in. He also picked up a new skill of running an espresso machine! After 4-5 years, they sold the flower shop and went to work on developing a quiet refuge and place of worship in rural Douglas County, KS, called The Fountains. As a function of Beckett Ministries, they held weekly non-denominational church services, and provided respite for many. For a short stint, he worked for car lots, driving vehicles down to other locations throughout the region. Then, giving up driving, Michael began volunteering for Audio Reader of Kansas in Lawrence, a service that provides access to information for the visually-impaired. His daughter, Tandy, drove him to his scheduled readings, and this became a weekly adventure as they tried out a new lunch spot after the readings were completed. Michael’s assignment was to record the Reader Digest once a week. He loved being in the recording booth once again, and he made a point of speaking with each staff member as he entered the building and as he left. Michael was a man of many talents. For one, he was a consummate musician. Receiving permission to play his brother Ron’s drum set at the age of 4, he quickly learned how to play a complicated riff and twirl a crashing cymbal. He loved to tell the story of marching down the street with the band during a parade, playing the crash cymbals which were larger than his head. At a most inopportune time, the leather strap broke and the cymbal went flying through the air! (We aren’t sure if it was a tall tale he was telling or the truth, but it sure was entertaining – as were all his stories!) When he had kids of his own, each one was taught to tap complicated rhythms, and each were taught to sing the “doobiedoobies!” Michael loved to sit at the piano and improvise. A student director of his high school band, he loved all types of music, and kept a large collection of LPs, CDs, and cassette tapes, ranging from classical, to jazz, to Gospel music, to the occasional Carole King and the Carpenters, and to his favorite – the orchestral works of Jackie Gleason. He sang his first solo as an 8-year old boy soprano for church. When he attended Washburn University, he was a member of Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia, and was in the Band, Choir, Singers, and Symphonette. He loved to sing with a family member accompanying him on the piano, and his tenor voice lent a beautiful harmony during family hymn-sings and church services, with carols at Christmas and at our extended family’s sung Table Grace. “O, Danny Boy” was a favorite. When he was in his early 20s, he met and sang for Tennessee Ernie Ford who told him that he had the talent to make it, but that it would come at a cost of being away from his family. He chose to stay with his family. Michael was also a prolific and skilled writer. He wrote books of poetry, short stories, and Biblical plays. And he was a composer of many tunes. He would often say that he had a tune in his head, and would not rest until he had written it out in manuscript and made sure one or more of his children had a copy, with the statements of either 1. “See what you can do with this,” or 2. “I’d like this to be sung at my funeral.” For many years, the Beckett family Christmas letter would include a new melody written by him. Dad also taught his daughters to dance, and he loved any opportunity to dance with Helen. As a radio and TV announcer, Michael wanted to know some meteorology in order to report on it, so he became a storm-chaser and a sky watcher. Each of his children can remember him waking them up in the middle of the night or early morning to go out and look at the sky with him, whether it was at a beautiful sunrise, a sunspot, storm clouds building, a rare viewing of the Northern Lights in Nebraska, or at a lunar or solar eclipse. He was also an amateur ham radio operator. In the days of the CB radio, he chose the handle, “Empty Ice Bucket,” which stood for EMT-IC (Emergency Medical Technician Instructor Coordinator), followed by his nickname, “Bucket.” As a grandfather, Michael was gentle and tender and funny. His grandchildren adored him, calling him Be-paw, or Grandpa B or Grandpa Beckett, or Grandpa Mike. As a father, he made sure his children knew his family’s heritage and history, (some of which he was proud of and some of which he wanted them to learn how not to be). He encouraged them to read their Bible, and his handwritten notes in all capital letters were treasures. He never hesitated to offer to drive friends and family across Kansas or other long distances, including friends visiting from Germany. His children’s friends adopted him as their father, too. Many still think of him as Dad Beckett. He loved a good joke and a good comic strip, and he loved animals (especially Sambo, his childhood dog). He volunteered at a granddaughter’s grade school, reading for the 3rd graders. He made sure his children – and his grandchildren – knew how to improvise with their voices or on the keyboard, how to sing parts to hymns, and how to make good life choices, laugh at themselves, and know directions. He taught them by example the importance of using their God-given authority to hold back the forces of evil. Michael loved the Lord! He said that his life purpose was to show the love of God to all people. He made sure that each of his family members knew how much he loved them and how blessed he was to be their husband/father/grandfather/father-in-law. This he reiterated each and every time he saw them – and even several times in the same conversation. He never thought he would live past the age of 40, because his father and his grandfather had both died at that age, and to almost double that expectation was a blessing for all of us. Michael was a cancer survivor, and a multiple-cardiac arrest survivor; he struggled with cardiac-induced dementia and the effects of a stroke, and had painful knees for many decades. But despite these ailments, he never became embittered. We are grateful he no longer is in pain. Grateful to have shared his life are his wife, Helen; children, Tandy Beckett Reussner (Lee), Sean Beckett (Diane), Amy Beckett, Peter Beckett (friend Kelly Dunklee) and Rachel Beckett Braga (Steve); grandchildren, Katelyn (Jimmy Alderson), Liesel (Sean Callahan), McKenzie (Russell Brandt), Megan, Hannah, Tiarra, Michael (Alison Watts), Kelsie, Clare, and Stephanie; great-grandchildren, Mia and Eisley; many cousins, nieces, nephews; many, many people who loved him, and many who called him “Dad”. Michael’s Memorial Service is Saturday, February 20, 10 a.m., at First Baptist Church, 3033 SW MacVicar Avenue, Topeka KS 66611. Inurnment, with military honors, will follow in Prairie Home Cemetery, Topeka. Both services will be live-streamed on the funeral home Facebook page. A Celebration of Michael’s life will be scheduled at a later date. Memorial contributions are suggested to Family Promise of Douglas County, sent in care of Kevin Brennan Family Funeral Home, 2801 SW Urish Road, Topeka KS 66614. Whenever Michael said goodbye to someone, whether they were leaving his house or hanging up the phone after a conversation, he would always say this benediction over them: “Jesus be with you, angels protect you, keep you safe, go before you and prosper your way.” And occasionally he would throw out with a grin, “Oh, and write if you get work!” Michael Beckett’s legacies of his faith and trust in Christ, of a love for family and a talent for music, of a gentleness born out of suffering, and of his ability to generously share the light of Christ with every person he met will live on through his wife, children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and more. Michael Beckett was truly a great man, and will be sorely missed.

Michael Beckett

September 26, 1942 - February 10, 2021