The body of Michael Ray Hayslip, 82, a familiar Garland figure in local history circles, passed from senescence to death on Juneteenth.  His spirit joined the host of dear and departed souls awaiting him.

A 1962 honor graduate of Garland High School, where he served as student council president, Mike also attended Washington & Lee University, Lexington, VA, The University of Texas in Austin and SMU, absconding sans ceremony with BBA and MBA degrees in finance.  Inquisitive to the point of nosiness, he confessed to learning most from his many mentors and mistakes. Always an evader of the expected, Mike also held two chemical coatings patents, an expired real estate broker's license and a forklift operating certificate.  But he eschewed both assumptions and certainty as handmaidens of error.

After a year in the management training program at Republic National Bank of Dallas, Mike joined First National Bank in Garland, where he handled both bond investments, loans and public relations.   Ripening rapidly, he scratched out his sustenance through a series of entrepreneurial and consulting efforts in contracting, picture framing, art, manufacturing, marketing and real estate.

Following his breech birth in Dallas Mike launched a 6th family generation of Garland community boosters who first settled the area before what he termed the War of Northern Aggression.  A founding member of the Garland Landmark Society, where he has served in official capacities for more than 50 years, he was a life member of the Dallas County Pioneers Association and served several terms on the Dallas County Historical Commission.  Besides contributing scores of historical photo-features for The Dallas Morning News and The Garland News, he authored Garland: Its Premier Century and edited Kate James: Dallas County Pioneer.  Mike's colorful chronicles, interpretations and opinions reflected his rebellious family's experiences with government during civil war and reconstruction.

He was also past president of Visual Aid Volunteers, Inc., which manually Brailled textbooks for the Texas Education Agency and former president of the Stephen D. Feldman Trust for visually impaired. These and other civic efforts, even appearing in women's clothes for charitable causes, Mike recorded as rent for resources of a free society.  Prioritizing action over talk and performance over popularity, he believed his own good fortune obligated him to contribute at least as much as he had received.

Chronically curious, observant, pugnacious and short, Mike adopted argument as his lifetime sport, forsaking all athletics.  He could support almost any position, even if it ensured opprobrium. Unsuited for any single political party or religion, he defaulted when pressed to the Golden Rule.  Despite his cynicism, Mike mined humor everywhere, gleefully puncturing pretense and righteousness wherever he found them, even in obituaries.  Rarely taking himself too seriously, Mike reveled in good-natured provocation, but usually moderated his mocking and sarcasm upon suspicion of good intentions.

Mike flouted dogma, conventional wisdom and political "correctumtudes."  While his socks mostly matched, he marched out-of-step, choked on chants and refused responsive readings entirely.  Candid and forthright to a fault, he assumed his word was a bond, except amorously.  Mike valued honesty, industry, loyalty and thrift, particularly thrift.  He also admired courage, applauding imperfect heroes such as Julian Assange, Edward Snowden, Ron Paul, Ross Perot, Jack Kevorkian and Robert E. Lee.

Survivors include Mike's daughter, Peyton Hayslip (husband Ellis Telford); son, Allan Hayslip (partner Melody Tarver), all of Dallas; granddaughters Kitty Stuart and Tiger Darrow (husband Cale Hawkins); as well as great grandchildren Charlie and Isabelle Corser.  Mike was predeceased by his mother, Mimi Olinger Davis; father, Harrison Hayslip; stepfather, Allan R. Davis, Jr.; stepmother, Bea Hayslip; muse, Janice Black and a granddaughter, Madeline Darrow.

Fearing that solemn incantations might reignite Mike's cremains, the family will commemorate his life's experience with friends at a place yet to be determined, but in the works.  They would be honored by your presence amidst echoes of his wisecracks.  Memorials, if considered justified, may be made to a worthy cause, planted in soil, proposed as a toast or flung upon hawkers of hogwash, whom Mike maligned mercilessly.