Michael Howard Dixon

Michael Howard “Mike” Dixon passed away at home on December 27, 2025. He was 84. Born on November 12, 1941, in Lawrence, Kansas, to Mason and Fern Dixon, he was the youngest of four children and grew up alongside his brother, Tom, and sisters, Molly and Nancy. The Dixons were an entrepreneurial bunch, and as a boy Mike did his part, working at the family drive-thru (Dixon’s, formerly on 6th Street in Lawrence) and playing saxophone in the family band.

Music became one of three lifelong passions, joined by a love of gardening and literature. In high school, Mike played in the band, serving as drum major his senior year. He’d also begun is career as an author, selling two of his poems to publishing houses.

After high school, Mike stayed in Lawrence and earned degrees in mathematics, philosophy, and psychology. During his doctoral program in psychology, he met Lois Saunders. They were married on August 12, 1970, in Kansas City, Missouri. After graduation, Mike and Lois both accepted research positions at Parsons State Hospital in Parsons, Kansas, where they began their family. Their son, David, was born in 1972, and their daughter, Cindy, in 1976.

Mike’s work at the hospital required him to use a new piece of equipment, a digital computer that filled an entire wall in a conference room. Deeply curious by nature, he dove into the manual, became the hospital’s go-to expert, and quickly recognized the long-term possibilities of the technology. When Lois accepted a new job at the Kansas Neurological Institute in Topeka, Mike made a bold career change, leaving psychology to work full-time with computers in the private sector. He ultimately spent more than a decade in the corporate office at Payless ShoeSource.

Outside of work, Mike’s time was happily claimed by gardening, reading, and writing. He was a voracious reader of books, magazines, and newspapers, with a strong preference for history and nonfiction. As a writer, he explored science fiction, computer self-help, and children’s stories, though work and family left limited time to fully devote himself to the craft.

Mike’s steady frugality made it possible for him and Lois to retire early, giving him the freedom to pursue his interests with greater focus. He became a Master Gardener and took pride in improving the grounds of the neighborhoods where he and Lois lived. And while his gardens brought him real joy, they also revealed to others another side of his personality. In addition to his curiosity, Mike was relentlessly observant and had a wry sense of humor. He took particular satisfaction in identifying and outsmarting any pest bold enough to encroach on his plants, from Asian beetles and aphids to bunnies, raccoons, and opossums. His family even discovered a full legal-pad sheet covered in tick marks, tracking the “varmints” he’d captured (and released elsewhere, of course)—part field research, part scoreboard.

Perhaps dearest to him, retirement opened the door for Mike to write and publish additional works in both print and audiobook form. Over time, his writing increasingly turned toward children’s stories, no doubt with his grandchildren in mind. One of his greatest delights came when a granddaughter noticed the student next to her reading a new book from the school library: Mouse Trax, by Mike Dixon. He published his second book, Incoming Nonsense, this past summer.

Mike is survived by his brother, Tom; his sister, Nancy; his wife, Lois; his children, David and Cindy; and his grandchildren, Caden, Maya, Isaac, Hunter, and Samantha.