Journalist, editor and avid angler Michael J. Beyer, formerly of Saginaw, Michigan, passed away peacefully in Nashville, Tennessee, Saturday, April 19. He was 75. Mike spent his entire working career fighting for truth and accuracy at the daily newspaper formerly known as The Saginaw News in Saginaw.
He began his career there in 1971 as the paper’s police reporter.
He later would become its investigative reporter, exposing corruption in local government and labor unions, and then as a features reporter and editorial writer. He was promoted to become an assistant metro editor, responsible for editing and fact-checking the work of others, assigning stories and tutoring reporters, making sure those he worked with always prepared engaging, and especially, accurate, accounts.
Mike was a mentor and role model to many journalists, including Darryl Q. Tucker, managing editor at The (Lorain) Morning Journal in Ohio.
“Mike was my mentor while I was a reporter at The Saginaw News,” Tucker said. “Mike pushed me to be the best and I don’t think I let him down, because he was a reference for me for the job I have now.
“His tutoring molded many journalists. He was a true journalist and he will be missed.”
As an assistant metro editor, he helped direct coverage of important stories including a major chemical train derailment and a fatal grain elevator explosion, among others, and was recognized for his work with awards including from the Michigan State Bar Association. At the News, he also made many friends among his fellow writers, sharing spirited, friendly conversations about current events.
That was Mike’s vocation. His avocation, however, was another story. Mike immersed himself in the outdoors. From the time he picked up a fishing rod or a shotgun in his youth, he was a dedicated sportsman.
He endured many long, cold mornings thigh deep in waders in flooded cornfields in Michigan’s Thumb and in the Shiawassee National Wildlife Refuge to hunt ducks. He would eventually give up hunting, saying it was “a young man’s sport.” He then concentrated on fishing, camping along world-famous trout rivers like the Au Sable and Manistee near Grayling and Roscommon. He spent many summer days catching and releasing trout there. He also traveled west with his family
numerous times to enjoy Yellowstone National Park and fish the famed spring creeks of Montana, Idaho and Wyoming using the trout flies he would tie himself to fool many a brown and rainbow trout.
He also fished for salmon and steelhead trout across the continent from Idaho and Montana to the rivers of Canada’s Nova Scotia, and in Michigan’s Pere Marquette River. He imbued son Jeremy with a love of the water on fishing trips in the family boat to Lake Michigan off Frankfort, Ludington and Manistee, Michigan.
He had to give up the sport he loved when his eyesight began
failing, but he would make one last trip to Montana in 2016 with fellow writer, Bill Semion, who he met at the Saginaw News, one of the many friends he made there.
Michael Joseph Beyer was born in Saginaw in Feb. 9,1950. He attended Jessie Loomis Elementary School, where he would meet the young girl who would eventually become Phylis Sharp Isanhart-Beyer in 2009. He graduated from Saginaw High School and while attending, worked summers as a public
swimming pool lifeguard.
On his 75-year journey, Mike, as a student at Michigan State University, married fellow student, Patricia Beyer (Scott) of Frankemuth, and together had two sons, Jeremy (Stacy) of Anderson, South Carolina, and Brett who preceded him in death in 2008. While at MSU, Mike helped to pay tuition by working at the university laundry.
He is survived by son Jeremy (Stacy), spouse Phylis Sharp Isanhart-Beyer, stepdaughter Libby Isanhart, stepson Brock Isanhart, and three grandchildren.
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