A celebration of life service for Mike Morris was held Saturday at the Southeastern Visual and Performing Arts Center, and the service was described as an “old-fashioned roasting.”
Morris, 72, was killed on May 16 in Arkansas when a driver Arkansas State Police said was intoxicated, struck his motorcycle. Morris was an avid lifelong motorcyclist and retired Southeastern Oklahoma State University professor where he taught mathematics and computer science. He dedicated his time and leadership to the Durant City Council and the People First Industries Board. He believed in giving back and worked to make Durant a better place for future generations.
“Moose” Parish, Tim Briscoe and Humphrey Miller spoke of riding motorcycles with Morris. Ronnie Glaze of the Elks Lodge and Karl Frenkle of the Southeastern “Geek Squad” spoke, and Morris’ daughter Lori Taylor summed it all up.
Members of the Three Valley Riders motorcycle club met at a car wash on North First Avenue to ride to the service in memory of Morris.
“Mike Morris, he was a good friend of ours,” said Michael “Batman” Mewszel, president of Three Valley Riders. “He was one of our charter members back in the day when we first started. We respect him a lot.”
Don Fentem, Brown’s Funeral Service funeral assistant/ chaplain, said this was a celebration of life the family described as an old-fashioned roasting.
“That’s what Mike would have wanted,” Fentem said. “That’s what the family would have wanted.”
Parish said that Morris was a fantastic husband, father and best friend of many.
“One of the things that how, absolutely wickedly smart he was, he was a few hours from his doctorate in mathematics,” Parish said. “Hell, I had to rely on Google to tell me how to spell mathematics. So, I think that all of us know, that are on Facebook, know about Kurty’s Kronicles. We know about his riding, his daily rides, where he went and we dearly miss all of those.”
Kurty is Morris’ son who has Down Syndrome and Morris frequently took Kurty on travels in a car.
“Another thing about Mike was, he snored,” Parish said. “Anybody ever camp with Mike? That boy could snore.”
Briscoe remembered that Morris had a big heart which he did not like to be known or showed. He recalled that when Church of Christ delivered Meals on Wheels, Morris wanted to go.
“He loved to take the food into the house and see the people that were shut in,” Briscoe said. “It just made him feel good.”
One time before the last meal of the day was to be delivered, they discovered that it did not have the small container of milk, so they went to a store where Morris bought a quart, the smallest size the store had.
“Mike delivered the milk, said, ‘Man, that old boy, he stood up when he saw that milk,’” Briscoe said. “He said he was happy. Mike said, ‘You know what I’m doing tomorrow? We’re going to take him a six pack of beer.’ I said, ‘No, we’re not taking beer to Meals on Wheels on Church of Christ week.”
Glaze first met Morris at Staff One in 1991, and he said that Morris was a member of the Durant Elks Lodge for 45 years.
“We did a lot of socializing outside of work and once or twice a week, a bunch of us would get together,” Glaze said. “Do cookouts, bonfires, cook hot dogs things like that. Mike loved a good bonfire. He loved to pick up little sticks, throw them in there.”
Frenkle recalled traveling with Morris to Iceland about 10 years ago.
“We got to avoid Mike’s snoring because we rented a big house,” Frenkle said.
He spoke of when Morris was a Southeastern instructor.
“What we built over the years is truly irreplaceable, and the students that we taught have really gone on to great things,” Frenkle said. “Worked for the government, worked for hospitals, built and helped maintain infrastructure all over the country. Of course, Mike was a really unique individual and the students really took to him.”
Miller became a friend of Morris later in life, and they met in the spring of 2021 when Miller was running for city council. Morris came to Miller’s Short Stop to meet Miller.
The two then became riding buddies, traveling thousands of miles together over multiple states.
“Our first trip was to Bowie, Texas, to see the world’s largest Bowie knife,” Miller said. “It was amazing, at first, I was like, it’s kind of geekish, kind of nerdy. So, rode down with him and before we left, I Googled the trip and it was four, five hours tops round trip. Not with Mike. You’re going to be riding down two-lane roads 90 percent of the time … We left on our journey and it was basically my test to see if he wanted to ride with me more. Two or three days later, he messaged asking when is our next trip.”
Miller recalled when Morris needed to stop.
“He peed a lot,” Miller said. “This guy, he’s older. He’s older than me. He had no vanity in peeing anywhere … Find a church, a tree, wherever, it did not matter.”
Before Morris left on the trip to Arkansas, Miller helped him fix a tire that was losing air.
“Before he left, we hugged and said love you quite a bit but for some reason, it just happened, that night I hugged his neck, told him I loved him,” Miller said. “Told him to be safe on his trip. So, he texted me on Friday night and said, he’d been 400-plus miles, and he’d made it to his first stop and the bike ran great.”
After the accident, Miller drove to Arkansas to pick up Morris’ cremated remains which he said was the toughest thing he has ever been through.
“I loved Mike and I appreciate him accepting me and bringing me into his life,” Miller said. “He means the world to me.”
Taylor recalled the first time she got on a motorcycle with her dad when she was about 3 years old.
“We were in the Elks Lodge parking lot,” Taylor said. “I remember being at the Elks Lodge and I remember wanting to ride, you know … I thought it was so cool that my dad rode a motorcycle and I wanted to ride, so, this was in the 80s and I’m a toddler and he puts me in front of him just for maybe like a ride around the block.
“The problem with that was there were no helmets for kids in the 80s and the helmets they made in the 80s were really heavy, so I had to wear my mom’s helmet, and I couldn’t hold it up. I wasn’t strong enough so, I had to lay my head down on the gas tank while we rode around town and I just kind of remember seeing out the visor.”
Taylor said that although everyone knew that her father was a “Harley guy,” he actually hated Harley-Davidson motorcycles for a long time.
“He never wanted a Harley,” Taylor said. “I don’t know why, maybe he stereotyped it as like gangster biking or something and he was having clean living and pure thoughts.”
She said that about 20 years ago, this changed and her father bought a Harley.
Taylor spoke about her father’s passion for teaching.
“Not just teaching but being around a university and being around young people and inspiring people in this space,” Taylor said.
Taylor said her dad was adamant that she not go to Southeastern and he wanted her to get out of Durant.
“The truth is, he didn’t really care where I went to college,” Taylor said. “He just wanted to get me away from (boyfriend) Dallas. I had this high school boyfriend that my dad was not a fan of and he was like, ‘Just get away from this guy,’ and the joke’s on him because he’s my husband. We’ve been married for 17 years.”
Taylor said another thing her father was passionate about was serving his community, including the People First Industries board that employees special-needs people such as Kurty.
Taylor said Morris was the board member who challenged the status quo.
“I think people at PFI know him for the great work he did and maybe he wore them out a little bit, but he got some good things done,” Taylor said.
Taylor recalled she often had lunch with her father and his passion for his children and that he was her cheerleader.
She works for AmeriState Bank in Atoka, and her father would drive there to have lunch with her once per week. Their favorite restaurant was Bledsoe’s.
“That was the last time I saw him, so my last meal with my dad was at Bledsoe’s and it was just so good,” Taylor said. “We just had a great day, and we had conversations about how much he loved me, how much he loved my kids and husband and all of this and that’s just how you want it to end. It was just another great experience.”
Taylor spoke about what she believed was the last text message her father sent to several people that included a picture of a winding Arkansas road with the message, “I’m in motorcycle heaven today.”
“Then about 10 minutes later, is when it happened,” Taylor said. “I have that screenshot. It brings me so much peace. He was really doing what he loved and that’s the way he would have wanted to go. I really believe that. What I want to say to everyone here is that even though this was a shocking, difficult and unexpected end, I don’t want him to be remembered for that.
“I don’t think he would want to be remembered for that, so please don’t remember him as the guy who was killed in a motorcycle accident. I want you to remember him as a loving father and a public servant, an amazing teacher, amazing grandfather, amazing husband and he was just such a good guy and he loved so hard and so deep.”
