Michael Eugene Dowell was born in Stillwater, OK on Aug 20, 1975. His parents didn't stay together long after his birth and it became clear by Mike's 6th birthday that his birth father wanted little to do with him. Mike's mom, a struggling student decided it best he stay with his financially independent grandparents temporarily. Due to reasons beyond her control, it became permanent.
Mike was a highly intelligent child and went to mostly private schools throughout elementary and Jr high school. One story told by family is that he freaked his 2 nd and 3rd grade teachers out by deliberately writing "right to left" and backwards because he was bored.
In high school he went to Leander HS in Leander,TX. He was active in the debate club,astronomy club, played the Trombone in the marching band, and took Tae Kwan do. When he graduated he tested out of 18 college credits and took a semester at the University of Texas majoring in general studies. Mike wanted to be writer & English teacher. Due to a disagreement with his grandparents about his major, he dropped his UT courses.
During this time he met up with an old classmate from high school at a coffeehouse one night. He asked Jodi (me) out in March 1994. In a couple of months we moved in together when the disagreements at home finally escalated to a point past resolving. Not knowing how he'll ever pay for college on his own, Mike decided to enlist in the US Air Force and started boot camp in Dec. 1994. When he graduated and en route to his new base assignment, we married in a quick ceremony in Austin and headed to Barksdale AFB in Shreveport,LA.
Mike had been suckered by his AF recruiter into joining the Air Force security forces. Mike's ASVAB scores had been high enough to work in almost any field but seeing as manning was low in the police/security field the recruiter convinced Mike that it would be all war games, exercises, working with police canines, glorified the field. The boy in Mike caved to this and spent the next 4 years watching fences and monitoring landing strips. He stood near radioactive planes and in weapons areas for 13 hour stretches. The kicker being his hours were so varied and bad he had no time to even take college classes and work.
He did have the opportunity to write at home and he wrote many short stories and created quite a few RPG games that he hope to one day put the finishing touches on and get published.
He seperated from the AF in July 2000 and went to work for a brief time in Security at National instruments in Austin,TX before getting sick a final time. That same year we learned we were expecting our first child and Ariana was born in April 2001. Mike said before he died that God had given him just enough time to meet his daughter. He also said that he had never known unconditional love until she was born. He loved his little "peanut" very much.