Michael William Bailey

Michael was the first child born to Ray and Colleen Bailey in Pensacola, FL on December 13, 1955. In 1961, the Baileys relocated to Las Vegas, NV where Michael attended public schools and graduated from Ed W. Clark High School, Class of 1973. He studied marketing and finance at both UNLV and UNR, ultimately earning a B.S. in Business Administration from UNLV.

Michael grew up with a pack of kids on Shawnee Street where he played outside until the streetlights came on. He was an accomplished fence-walker and founding member of his childhood Spy Club. In high school, Michael became a rock fan (now known as Classic Rock) but before that he played accordion in the Helldorado Parade, received many merit badges in cub scouts, loved his chemistry set and learned to build and launch rockets. He earned high grades and wrote an award-winning short story, Feb., before leaving elementary school. Summers found him unloading produce trucks, restocking fruit stands and playing poker with cousins in the basement on Vicksburg Rd in Pensacola.

A member of the hiking club in high school, Michael back-packed through the Sierra Nevada Mountains many times. He was a philosophical, nature-lover who practiced transcendental meditation, made farm fresh goat's milk ice cream and occasionally enjoyed the then-popular art form of Streaking. An art that shocked his parents one night when police brought him home after witnessing one of his nude bicycle rides down Torrey Pines.

Michael began his long career of "This and That," at Pirky Burgers where he flipped burgers with Cecil Pirkle (his first paying job, if you don't count his paper route). When he was 16, he drove through neighborhoods selling banana splits and hot fudge sundaes from his soft serve ice cream truck. Always innovative, Michael designed a multitude of inventions including a unique self-watering/gardening system involving rows of stacked, sliced-in-half, pvc pipe garden beds that were gravity-fed from a bathtub on the roof. He worked in construction and real estate and did appraisals for the highway department for a while.

In the 1990s, he made and sold lock art sculptures. With the advent of the Internet, Michael sourced and touched up product images for the original online retailer, Egghead.com. He recently said this had been his favorite gig. Always keeping in step with the times, Michael's latest obsessions were crypto currency and NFTs. Most recently, he was running a salvage business, purchasing and selling the contents of storage units. To haul his goods from the units, he fashioned a trailer hitch onto his 750 Honda motorcycle and used it to pull trailer loads of goods from storage to point of sale. See it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uz11Y7uDu8g

Family fueled Michael's joy in living. He had great love and respect for all of his family members. He rarely missed a family gathering, even if it was just a weekly Zoom get together. He was proud of both of his daughters and thrilled to have danced with them at their weddings. Michael took great delight in his inventive role of zany grandfather. You can find an excellent video on his YouTube channel Godzilla.Roader (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FK14z3S_11A) that emphasizes his unique expression in this role. Strangely, Michael was as conventional as he was unconventional, and you can see him as Pop Pop enjoying his granddaughters in a more traditional way in this video: https://youtu.be/pZ2sCOKaWfo

Michael is survived by almost all of his loving family: parents, Ray and Colleen Bailey; wife: Ruth Elsie Bailey; two daughters: Jennifer Bailey Martinez, her spouse, Marcel, and their two daughters -- Jade and Milan; Nicole Herrington her spouse, Eric, and their son James Ray; three siblings: Amanda Bailey, Melissa (Bailey) and Joe Uhrich, Sam and Kim Bailey; nieces: Grace, Emma and Olivia; nephew: Sam, as well as many loving aunts, uncles and cousins.

A Memorial Service for Michael will be held Sunday, February 12, 2023 from 1:00 PM to 2:00 PM at Palm Downtown Mortuary, 1325 North Main St, Las Vegas, NV 89101, followed by a reception (same location) from 2:00 PM to 4:00 PM. In lieu of flowers, please share a memory or a photo or contribute to the fundraiser to cover the cost of the Memorial Service here: https://www.gofundme.com/f/mike-bailey-memorial-fund

The Bailey family thanks you for your love and support during these difficult times of loss and grief.