Left: Mike Ellis in his college years.

“It was a bit of a shock,” said Lopezian Mike Ellis when he learned the British Royal Air Force had “just the right assignment. I was going to be a nurse. I thought I’d fly a Spitfire!” Conscripted into the military at 17, “It was really nifty to learn a lot about medical stuff,” he explained with typical enthusiasm.

Mike grew up in a little community on the south coast of Britain. “It was a very fascinating time for a little kid. World War II was up in the sky above me and was right up and down my street because we had Canadian, American, Australian and British troops all living and intermingled with us.” It was a time when a child’s status was measured by their shrapnel collection and when fear arrived on whistling or V1 rocket bombs. “We were oblivious to death and we didn’t know what peacetime was like.” Mike’s grandfather who lived nearby became his male role model and first mentor. A humble man and son of a shepherd, he moved to London as a young man and became a policeman. Mike’s father, a detective for Scotland Yard, was away for six years while serving as an officer during the war. “There was still rationing in Britain way, way after the war. There just wasn’t enough food.” With parents who survived the depression, Mike learned about thrift very early. From the first pound he received, half of it went into savings.

Things happened as a result of the war; the Labor party came in and revolutionized the equivalent of Social Security, health care and education, according to Mike. An exam, given to him at age ten, determined a child’s educational options. “Luckily I could do it, and I had a wonderful education in Britain.”

During Mike’s high school years, Olympic track and field athletes trained near his school. Some students were allowed to participate and Mike was one of the boys selected. “I was successful mostly because of the genes.” he said. “But it was important because of the learning. You have to be very disciplined, very organized and a good time manager to be an Olympian.” His coach, his second mentor, “taught me manners, courtesy, consideration, discipline. I saw another successful male and I learned what would be expected of me.” During the next seven years, Mike, a hammer thrower, competed in Russia, Finland, Poland, Germany and represented Britain in the 1960 Rome Olympics.

“I met Margaret at a track and field clinic where I was a demonstrator and she was a young athlete—another lucky day. I’m a very lucky guy,” Mike said.

After serving his two-year military obligation, Mike went to college and coasted along “with a gentleman’s C” until a third mentor confronted him. It’s kind of like athletics Mike learned, “If you could do it, you should do it,” so with a little extra effort he did well.

With his undergraduate degree in physical education and science and after teaching all grade levels, Mike attained a position in a British university where he taught and researched industrial fitness regarding suitability or limitations on capacity for work. With promotion potential low in their system, his mentor encouraged him to go to the U.S. for a graduate degree. He obtained both masters and doctoral degrees at the University of Illinois.

Appointed researcher in one of the Kennedy Centers of Excellence, the Children’s Research Center at the University of Illinois for nine years, Mike then held administrative positions at a university in Halifax and served as Department Chair of Physical Education and Human Movement Studies at the University of Oregon. When appointed a Dean at the University of Illinois, the position required major fund raising. Mike’s reaction was “Wow! I’m going to learn something new. It wasn’t easy, but it was rewarding and exciting.”

A boat named “Lopez,” belonging to friends in Halifax aroused the couple’s curiosity about the island. “We’re urban people with a desire to touch the earth,” Mike explains. They bought property in 1978 and built their home. “I thought a person, once in their lifetime, ought to build their own house.

“We stumbled across a community we value,” said Mike about his life on Lopez. “This is our anchor.” He has used his many skills to serve on the boards, often as chairperson, of the Community Center and the Lopez Historical Society. With their two children, and grandchildren, living in Portland, the couple now has a second home there.

“All of these things come together—thrift, discipline, planning, do it right, pay attention, sit in the front row, and when doors open—go through. I’ve led a charmed life,” Mike concludes.

Mike Ellis,

Lopez Island