Michael (Mike) Perry Black

Reno - Retired Air Force Lt. Col Michael (Mike) Perry Black passed away at his home on December 5, 2020.

Michael was born in Richland, WA on June 26, 1947 to parents, Marvin Perry Black and Myrta Hertenstein-McIntire. He served in the military 23 years, earning his undergraduate degree in industrial engineering and graduate degree in business while traveling the world, before making Reno, NV his home.

Michael was a life energy force, a strong and quiet leader with eclectic tastes, integrity, and an unending pursuit of knowledge which was reflected in his many interests including fencing, photography, hiking, skiing, flying, traveling, reading, gardening, welding, and every home construction/improvement project. His thirst for life was unsurpassed. He was also a dedicated public servant, holding positions with both the Reno Housing Authority and Washoe County School District, in addition to being a proud member of the Reno Sunrise Rotary Club and business mentor with SCORE.

Michael is survived by Pamela, his wife of 24 years; his son and daughter: Alex and Theresa Black (Robert Pereida); step-son and step-daughter, Shane and Victoria Rocha; step-granddaughter Arbor Pereida, and granddaughter Violet Pereida.

An outdoor celebration of life is tentatively scheduled for June 26, 2021 (his 74th birthday). Please contact Victoria Rocha ([email protected]) and Theresa Black ([email protected]) if you are interested in attending.

In lieu of flowers, the family requests donations to the Reno Sunrise Rotary Club: Reno Sunrise Rotary Club, PO Box 11456, Reno, NV 89510.

To plant trees in memory, please visit the Sympathy Store.

Published by The Reno Gazette Journal and Lyon County News Leader from Dec. 14 to Dec. 16, 2020.

Memories and Condolences
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6 Entries

Alex Black

December 5, 2022

Alex Black

December 5, 2022

Alex Black

December 5, 2022

He was born during the bustling years after World War II in a small desert city. One constructed almost overnight to build the atomic weapons that ended the conflict. His childhood was often lonely. Coming of age in the 1960s and inspired by the rapid progress in technology and the challenges of that era, he set out to do extraordinary things.

Mike served nearly twenty-five years in the US Air Force. A career taking him around the world at the height of the Cold War and retiring as a lieutenant colonel at its conclusion. Trained as an engineer in the methodologies of industrial organization and fascinated with the particulars of leadership as an art and discipline, he went on to spend well over a decade in public service. A second career in which he helped provide affordable housing for the disadvantaged. Then ensured children had well-maintained schools across a populous swath of Northern Nevada before retiring again.

He inspired a lot of people along the way. A cohort of young men and women who met him during the 1980s and 90s went on to become Army and Air Force officers, engineers, successful entrepreneurs, and public servants. Almost all of them eagerly imitated his drive to grow into a more capable person by continually seeking new challenges in all aspects of life.

For several of these children and young adults, his most important influence turned out to be the example he set as a parent. He was emotionally open with his kids while still being the adult in the room. He also embraced the awesome parts of being a father. Camping, hiking, skiing, and fun road trips.

He was the ultimate cool dad, in part, because of his enthusiastic love for discussing the big picture, important ideas, and the larger meaning of life with anyone of any age. Often in a living room with his magazines scattered about it - Scientific American, Discovery, and both Popular Science and Mechanics. There was also his considerable home library of books for friends to look through and borrow, containing science fiction as well as science texts and recent history and biographies.

He inherited his sense of delight in life from loving parents who´d lived through hard times during their youth. His mother, Myrtle, and her parents and sisters made a wartime migration from the rural woods and poverty of Depression-era Minnesota to the Tri-Cities in Washington State, arriving as the towns sprung up at the confluences of the Yakima, Columbia, and Snake Rivers. His father, Marvin, had grown up on the family farm in Iowa, then worked to support his sisters through manual labor in 1930s Chicago - often hanging out with other displaced young men in nightclubs at the end of the day, drinking and enjoying live music from a parade of obscure musicians such as Bing and Sinatra. He settled in Washington State after the war´s end, having served as an infantryman and scout in the 1st Cavalry Division in the Pacific Theater, from New Guinea to the liberation of the Philippines, then briefly in the army of occupation in Japan.

Marv and Myrtle loved life amid the new-found prosperity of the post-war world. Mike´s mom held down a career as a charismatic waitress, throwing multi-course dinner parties for friends and family. She dearly enjoyed taking her son and their dogs camping. His father - determined after the war never to spend another night outdoors - delighted in restaurants, backyard barbeques, trips, and time spent with friends and his son. That, and large, fast automobiles such as his boat-sized Cadillac.

All of these enjoyments found a home in Mike. Though, he would favor the muscle and sports cars loved by his generation, owning a 1967 Mustang and an Austin Healey for decades.

Sadly, his parents´ mutual love broke down with the cooling of initial passions, leading to a divorce and amicable separation when Mike was very young. The long loneliness of life as a single child - interrupted periodically by time with cousins and a cortege of aunts - eventually gave way to a gang of friends in high school and then junior college. A blossoming romance with a girl who lived across the street from his best friend´s parents. A house shared with friends while at school.

Then he was drafted.

With the war in Vietnam fully underway, he received a disqualifying grade and then notification from the Selective Service board. Determined to join the most-forward looking of the armed forces, he hustled, cajoled, and won his way into the Air Force. After work as a signals interception tech in Japan and a variety of locations across Asia, he decided an officer´s commission and free university education were too good to pass up.

Mike missed seeing the Apollo 11 moon launch after his intended said yes to marriage. He packed up from where he´d been camped on a white sand beach in sight of the Kennedy Space Center and returned home to the Tri-Cities.

Adult life followed. A son, Alex, and a daughter, Theresa, were born in Northern California when he was a newly commissioned lieutenant at Travis Air Force Base. Then a cross-country move to the cornfields of Illinois at Scott Air Force Base. Not wanting to get overly caught up in base culture, he and his wife elected to live in nearby New Baden, where he occasionally raised eyebrows among the stolid inhabitants of the German-American farming and small town community. A playful fight with his daughter and son, using swords rolled from newspapers and duct tape, turned into an unprecedented and gleeful general melee - a dozen or so other children from the neighborhood making their own swords and joining the backyard battle.

He left the Air Force to reduce the stress on his family - he and his wife and children settling in Reno, Nevada at the start of the 1980s. A city on the high desert leeward side of the Sierras and Carson Range, it struck both adults as perfectly similar to Tri-Cities but with access to skiing and Northern California. His separation from the Air Force proved short-lived. A friend from Squadron Officer School soon persuaded Mike to join the Nevada Air National Guard as a full-time officer.

His first marriage ended with the 80s as did his career in the Air Force. His mother´s struggle with Alzheimer´s was a painful episode, but one in which he provided loving care for her until the end. He stayed close to his father throughout his life, calling each week, visiting as often as he could, and hosting Marv at home in Reno for months at a time when health became an issue.

Mike kept active hiking, skiing, and traveling throughout the 1990s and the 2000s. He thrived in public-sector work and enjoyed Reno´s evolution from a den of gambling into a much more diverse and creative economy. He remarried as his adult children left home during the mid-90s, raising two more children who grew up deeply fond of him.

During the 2010s, he enjoyed retirement, continuing to read voraciously and both taking up and teaching professional photography. He traveled with his wife often, talked with friends about how to solve the world´s big problems, visited his children and grandchild, Violet, in Los Angeles and Portland, Oregon, and went downhill skiing for thirty or more days each winter. He continued hiking in the Sierras and Great Basin right up until falling ill with cancer.

Mike will be sorely missed by many.

Linda Montgomery

December 17, 2020

R.I.P. Mike, you And Pamela were two of my favorite people at Raley’s Pamela so sorry for your loss ...Linda

Cathy

December 16, 2020

I worked directly with Lt Col Black as his administration secretary when he commander of the 152nd MSS. He was a very caring person. So sorry to hear about his passing. Sending healing prayers to his family.

Woodie Shipman

December 16, 2020

Well Mike I have known you since 4th grade. I remember all the good times we spent together. The years in junior high and high school as well as with all the House members at CBC. You were always like a rock to all of us. You were always a good man. I have never known a better one. You are gone but will never be forgotten. Rest in peace my good man after a life well lived. Remembering you as always your long term bud Woodie

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