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Mike Doyle Obituary

Published by Legacy Remembers from Mar. 13 to Mar. 17, 2024.

Panama City - Mike Doyle of Panama City, Florida, passed away unexpectedly on Thursday, February 29, 2024, due to surgical complications. Mike was a kind, loving, devoted, and hardworking husband of 38 years. He was a good man. He was the best father and grandfather a man could possibly be. It was important to him to find a way to bond with each of his children and grandchildren. His children worshiped him. When his grandsons were young, he taught them to fish, and one by one, he would pull them aside, privately, and say, "you're my favorite", something the boys would laugh about often as they grew up. He loved playing cards with the boys as they grew into amazing young men. Mike also found a way to form a special bond with his only granddaughter, whom he dubbed "George" when she was a toddler. The nickname stuck and she loved it, later signing all of her artwork as "George".

Once retired, Mike spent his time with his wife, LaVada, and they had just begun traveling to Kentucky, visiting all of their children and grandchildren along the way.

Mike never met a stranger. You became instant friends the moment you met Mike. He had fishing buddies, railroad buddies, neighborhood buddies, and childhood buddies from as far back as elementary and high school. He kept in touch with all of them, speaking to many almost daily. Mike loved offshore fishing, wade fishing, woodworking and his "Mancave", where he entertained his buddies.

Mike and his brother, Todd, were extremely close and spoke several times a day.

Mike had a beautiful life. He leaves behind so many good and fun memories to all who loved him, and an enormous space that none of us will ever be able to fill. Mike had a smile on his face as he was wheeled off to the operating room. He went to sleep, and he never woke up ... What he had always said was the best way to go.

MICHAEL JAMES DOYLE "Mike", born September 13, 1957, in Chicago, IL to Dick and Ellen Doyle, passed away Thursday, February 29, 2024. Mike is preceded in death by his parents, his sister Kathleen, and his brothers Kevin and Kyle. Mike is survived by his wife, LaVada, three sons Jimmy (Sarah), Michael, and Ryan (Nicole), five grandsons, one granddaughter, brothers Shannon (Rena) and Todd, and many nieces and nephews.

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Recent Activity

July 13, 2025

Dan W. Taliaferro posted to the memorial.

June 28, 2025

Scott Jackson posted to the memorial.

June 11, 2025

Dan W. Taliaferro posted to the memorial.

11 Entries

Dan W. Taliaferro

July 13, 2025

When I reflect upon the life of Mike Doyle, three words always come to mind: love, loyalty, and humor. Mike loved his close friends, his family, and especially his wife, and he loved them hard, or more accurately, unabashedly and with great passion. He was not reticent to express his love by frequently reminding you of it. Men have difficulty telling the few special male friends in their lives that they love them. Not so with Mike. He let you know of his affection for you, and how special you were to him. He was secure enough in his manhood, for he was a man´s man much like a John Wayne character, to express himself honestly and sincerely whether to man or woman.

Mike´s loyalty was never compromised. If you made friends with Mike, you made a lifelong friend. You may have lived through periods during your life, as we all do, when raising children, devoting time to marriage, pursuing careers, and chasing success might prevent you from regular contact with old friends. But Mike would be there-was always there-when you needed him, whether just to reconnect, laugh about old times, discuss something serious, or when you were seeking someone in whom to confide. That trait defined his loyalty. While others prove false on friendship, while others might betray, while others might forget, Mike remained true and his loyalty never faltered.

I met Mike in 1975 during our junior year of high school. For whatever reason we formed an instant connection and within a few weeks became the best of friends throughout high school. If you saw me those last two years of high school, you usually saw Mike with me. I was the brains of that two man operation and he was the muscle. He was like an older brother to me, and me being small and picked on throughout my school years, all that harassment ended when Mike befriended me. I knew he always had my back. I could never protect him the way he protected me. I could assist him with homework but he did far more for me by being my protector and loyal friend. He remained such for my entire life. Many years after high school, when I was at my lowest, he was there to console me following the untimely violent death of my father, and help me during the trying years of a difficult divorce I experienced.

Women liked Mike, and he liked them. I was much involved in our high school drama club (the Thespians), and I asked him to join the class with me. He immediately declined telling me he would never act in a play. But when I took him to the Acting I classroom, the first week of the 1974-1975 second semester, for him to merely check out the class, he took one look at the many pretty girls in the class, turned to me and said without hesitation "I´m in." We then became involved in many plays, but Mike never acted. He helped design and build sets while I lived to be on stage. Then our drama teacher Larry Williams, for obvious reasons during senior year of 1976, decided to produce the musical play "1776," and we needed about two dozen male actors. So Mike was dragooned into playing a role of a character who has the most dramatic, long, and sensational song in the entire play. Mike was not merely good, he almost stole the show, much to my chagrin for I was the lead character of John Adams. But he was simply great-a hidden talent-and he should have acted in many other plays. More than a few girls in that class had a crush on him.

Mike always spoke glowingly of his wife and children. He never wavered in his devotion to his wife Lavada. He never stopped boasting about the success of his children and never stopped worrying about any misfortune they suffered until the problem passed. Mike never complained to me about his wife as most all men commonly do to their best friends; rather, he always spoke admiringly of Lavada and told me repeatedly that she was the best thing that ever happened to him. He had such abounding love for his wife and family.

Mike Doyle was never at a loss for an opportunity to make you laugh. We shared many inside and peculiar jokes between us that only we could appreciate, but he was gifted in also sharing his humorous nature with others. He brought happiness into your life. He might share a clever joke, or he might employ sarcasm, or he might relate a silly story from his youth, but he´d invariably have you laughing every time you were around him.

For about the last two decades before his passing, Mike and I had developed the habit of telling one another "I love you" at the end of every phone call. He started it. He´d say "I love you, Danny boy" as we were close to ending our frequent calls. It took me a little while, but I soon began replying "And I love you too Mikey" before ending the call. We spoke on the phone for ninety minutes the night before he underwent the anesthesia from which he never awakened, and he told me he loved me three times during that conversation, not just at the end as was customary. It was unusual. Of course, I replied with the same expression each time. Why share this? Because it shows, that even at the end, he was placing me above his own concerns. He wanted to make certain I knew, if something went wrong the next morning in surgery, that he loved me; that our almost fifty year friendship meant that much to him. If only I´d have been sensitive enough to realize, or at least suspect, the tragedy that was going to befall him, there was so much more for me to say and thank him for. But he knew I loved him and, in the end, that is all that matters. It is all that will ever matter between two old friends who shared life together, laughed together, cried together, had adventures together, and shared great memories together.

I will always love Mike Doyle, and I know I will see him again when my appointed time arrives to meet the Lord in paradise. Until that day, Mike Doyle will always live on in my memory and dreams. His was a life well lived.

Scott Jackson

June 28, 2025

To say that Mike Doyle and I grew up together is no exaggeration. When we were both 9 (or so), he tackled me in the backyard of a local neighbor lady. The lady stood over both of us and proclaimed "That Scott Jackson needs a good pinning."

In that moment, a great friendship was born. Mike and I became inseparable. It would not be possible except in a book to describe adequately what Mike meant to me. He was the brother I never had and my alter ego. Mike was at the epicenter of almost every humorous (or reckless) incident that marked my life from elementary school through 9th grade. I miss Mike dearly and always will.

Mike, my friend, you were epic in life and now also in death. Ahhhh skathne pothy! Scott