Col. Thomas Michael "Mike" Sellers

On Tuesday, 21 January 2025, Col. Thomas ‘Mike’ Sellers, USAF (Ret), died, shortly after consulting with his wife of 57 years, Viola Irma Gonzales Sellers. In a state of delirium, his final words were to his eldest son, Sean, whom he instructed to call his brother, Pat. The three of them needed to hurry to the dealership and spend the night in one of the cars. That way they’d be ready to drive away with it in the morning and give it to their sister, Kathy. Even in his final moments, through the fog of confusion, he concentrated on his family, their welfare, and the very best way to guarantee a good deal on a car. Thus, he died in as he lived: husband, father, gear-head…bit of a weirdo (but in a good way — you’ll see).

He was born on 22 March, 1944, at St. Anthony Hospital, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, and was adopted almost immediately by a young couple that were having trouble conceiving their own child. Their names were Thomas Robert and Mary Sellers. In later years, Mike imagined that his birth parents had met at Tinker Air Force Base, where young men were pilot training and young women were learning to repair B-52 bombers. It was an Air Force origin story — the son of a soldier and a mechanic, who like Clark Kent in nearby Smallville, Kansas, would be raised by two loving, adoptive parents, only to meet his destiny first as a ‘Greaser’, straight out of S.E. Hinton’s The Outsiders, and then as flyboy in Vietnam and veteran of the US Air Force and Air National Guard. 

After his adoption, the family moved to Tulsa where it grew to include four additional children, Steve, Tam, Susan, and Beth, with big brother, Mike, always and forever the leader of the pack. In another reality, they could have been Oklahoma’s answer to the Osmonds. But, the family was Roman Catholic and, true to Hinton’s source material, Mike was a bit too much of the Tulsa trouble-maker to ever really compete with the clean cut Mormon five-piece even with their ‘Crazy Horses’ wild side. So, instead, the world would have to wait for the Hanson boys while Mike went off on a 35-year tour with the great Uncle Sam – from 1963 to 1999 and through all the ranks from Airman to Colonel.

The Summer of Love came one year early for Mike. As a part-time student at the University of Tulsa, he met Viola Irma Gonzales from Raymondville, Texas, herself a Speech and Language student at Texas Woman’s University in Denton. It was a long-distance relationship at first. And then it wasn’t. And then, in the summer of 1968, it ended…in marriage and ultimately three children, their spouses, Stephanie, Dyana, and Kevin, and five grandchildren, Dominic, Casey, Aurelio, Conor, and Eneko. All will miss him terribly.

A lot can be said of Mike’s illustrious military service from Vietnam and Agent Orange to his direct commission and stint at the Pentagon, where at least one friend warned him to steer clear of a certain soon-to-be notorious US Marine. But the man in uniform people saw everyday was not the man most people knew. He was a soldier, for certain, with a soldier’s demeanor from his inability to untuck his top or not wear an undershirt or ever let his hair grow beyond regulation. But he was also a neighbor and friend and family man, the kind of push-over TV dad the actor Bryan Cranston might play in a three-camera sitcom with his little pot belly, and high-waist shorts, and his thick white socks, and his open-toed sandals that made him look like a camp counselor in an 80s teen comedy. He was the kind of man who never saw a gadget he didn’t need to own, made waffles for all his daughter’s sorority sisters the morning after they stayed the night at his house, and who was forever the butt of every family joke. 

More than anything, he was comfortable with who and what he was. He loved to laugh. He was unpretentious and plain-spoken. He had an MBA, and an Ed.S, and a law degree; and taught part-time at colleges in Oklahoma City and Dayton. But, he also misused words all the time, never learned to say Massachusetts correctly (even though he lived there and served in the Massachusetts Air National Guard for about 10 years), and spoke with a host of Americanisms the great Will Rodgers and Mark Twain themselves would have envied. He was forever telling you the truth and fixing to do things, here in a little bit. 

He loved to give his name and talk to strangers. He’d shout ‘Splenda?’ at wait staff without any explanation. He was deaf with selective hearing. In another lifetime he’d have been Harry Truman or Lyndon Johnson or Martin Sheen as Jeb Bartlet from the West Wing, who he sometimes resembled. He was folksy and he was smart, even when he didn’t seem it. And he was savant when it came to the minutia of government procurement, aircrafts, and weaponry. And he worked every day of his life until the day he didn’t anymore. 

He hated being idle and rarely stood still. He loved changing the oil in cars, breathing through his mouth, and going out to eat with family and friends. He taught his children the value of hard work and dedication, to be generous and welcoming, to be curious and to pack a bag or a suitcase, a box or a trunk, like nobody’s business. And at the end of the day, book in one hand, phone in the other, he’d sit and watch TV with his eyes closed. And that’s how he’ll be remembered. Just resting his eyes. We love you. ‘Stay gold, Ponyboy. Stay gold.’

A Celebration of his life will be held at a later date by the family.

To share a memory of Mike or leave a special message for his family, please visit the Guestbook below.

"God looked around His garden 

 and He found an empty place. 

 He then looked down upon this earth, 

 and saw your tired face. 

 He put His arms around you 

 and lifted you to rest. 

 God’s garden must be beautiful, 

 He always takes the best. 

 He knew that you were suffering. 

 He knew you were in pain. 

 He knew that you would never 

 get well on earth again. 

 He saw the road was getting rough 

 and the hills were hard to climb. 

 So He closed your weary eyelids, 

 and whispered,”Peace be thine.” 

 It broke our hearts to lose you 

 but you didn’t go alone, 

 for part of us went with you 

 the day God called you home."