Michael Holliger "Mike" Badger

MICHAEL "MIKE" HOLLIGER BADGER, 43, passed away March 4, 2009, at Sugar Land Methodist Hospital. A devoted music fan, enthusiastic traveler and friend to everyone he met, Mike was born July 16, 1965, in Houston to Robyn Lucas Badger and Corine Thomas Badger. His early childhood memories were of Corpus Christi, where the family moved in 1969. In 1973, the family returned to Houston where Mike began to acquire a group of life-long friends. He graduated from Cypress Creek High School in 1983, and moved to Nacogdoches to study journalism at Stephen F. Austin University. Combining a flair for writing with his considerable musical talent, he covered the local music scene for the SFA Pine Log. Following graduation in 1987, he returned to Houston where he worked as a writer for Petroleum Information (now IHS Inc.), Hopkins Public Relations and the Houston Chronicle. In 2004, he retired to travel the world with his long-time love Anne Leonard, whom he married on a joyous April day in 2007. He was preceded in death by his mother and father and is survived by his sister Betsy Badger Truesdale, her husband Thomas Truesdale and niece Katie Truesdale of Walden; and his wife Anne Leonard Badger and her mother, brother, two sisters, four nieces, two nephews and their spouses and significant others who have voted Mike the "best in-law ever." A celebration of Mike's all-too-short life will be held 5:00 p.m. on Saturday, March 7, at the Settegast-Kopf Co. Funeral Home, 15015 Southwest Freeway, Sugar Land, Texas, 281-565-5015. Memorials can be made to the National Humane Society or the American Cancer Society.