Allen Michael Lee

On June 13, 2026, Allen Michael “Mike” Lee died peacefully at home in Kennesaw, Georgia surrounded by his family after a nearly year long battle with Stage IV lung cancer.

Mike was born in 1946 in Anniston, Alabama to Mary Frances (nee Brooks) and Thurmond Reginald “T.R.” Lee. He was the only boy among his sisters Brenda, Pat and Joanie and, in the words of Brenda, was “beautiful, tan and beach blond,” so he was everyone’s favorite and spoiled rotten.

During his childhood, Mike called the Anniston area home but his father T.R., who worked in the oil and construction business, often took the family with him on his travels. They lived in Pascagoula, Louisiana; San Leandro, California; Tegucigalpa, Honduras; Pocatello, Idaho and exotic Albany and Augusta, Georgia. Mike worked on the Florida turnpike during summers before college to save tuition money. One such summer, he brought a bobcat kitten back from the Florida swamp and ended up catching cat scratch fever. He graduated from Jacksonville High School in 1964 and earned a business degree from Jacksonville State in Jacksonville, Alabama in 1968. He married his wife Betty Jane “Peanuts” Buchanan of nearly 60 years in 1967 and raised three boys–Mike, Chris and Jeff.

Upon graduation from college, Mike was a buyer and manager of several Martin’s Department Stores in Anniston. He and Betty wanted to buy a house, so he asked for a raise and was told “no.” He took a two week vacation and by the second Friday, they were driving to Denver for his new job in transportation. His career in trucking took him from Denver to Birmingham, Alabama and then to Griffin, Georgia where the family lived for 13 years. They finally settled in Kennesaw, Georgia for the last 38 years. During this time, he had a furniture store in downtown Kennesaw called Lee ReSales–buying storage units before Storage Wars was a thing. It was at his store that a chance encounter with Wayne Randall led to him joining the FEMA family. Mike went to work for FEMA as a logistics manager and spent the next 28 years watching the Weather Channel with his bags packed. He and Betty traveled together for FEMA to Kentucky, Mississippi, Louisiana, the Carolinas, Austin, Texas, Buffalo, NY, Niagara Falls, Iowa, Wisconsin, South Dakota, Washington State, Oregon, all over Florida and Georgia, and even St. Croix in the Virgin Islands for a year. In addition to his family and friends, Mike loved sitting in his recliner enjoying Nascar, boxing, and Alabama football (Roll Tide!) between naps.

Mike is preceded in death by his parents, and his sisters Katie Lynn Lee and Joan Lee Weems. He is survived by his sisters Patricia Ann Lee Blackburn and Brenda Gail Lee Haver (Butch Haver), wife Betty, sons and daughters-in-law, Allen Michael “Mike” Lee, Jr. (Teri Hammond), Christopher Scott Lee (Andrea Cerrito Lee) and Jeffrey Lane Lee, as well as grandchildren, Owen Nathaniel Hammond-Lee, Griffin Anderson Hammond-Lee, Asa Francisco Lee, and several nieces, great nieces and nephews.