George Michael Reeves, Jr – better known as Skip and Skipper to his closest friends and family – passed away on Tuesday, December 20, 2022, after a long and hard-fought battle with Pompe disease, a rare neuromuscular condition. He was born in Houston, Texas, to George Michael “Mike” Reeves and Nancy Craig Reeves on July 27, 1961. He was given the nickname of Skip by his mom early in his life but went by Michael in school. However, in the first grade there were too many Michaels in the class and the teacher asked all of the Michaels if any of them had a nickname. Skip spoke up and was forever known as Skip from that point forward.
Skip was the third child of four and first son to Mike and Nancy. A typical and active boy, he loved being outdoors. He was a baseball player early in his life, becoming a pitcher – a great talent for a left-handed player. Through friends, he learned to hunt and fish, both of which became lifelong passions. He had a creative streak and a talent for music. He loved art, especially drawing. He taught himself guitar and played the trumpet in middle school and the tuba in high school. His love for the guitar would become another lifelong passion and hobby. He was in his high school choir and loved being in the high school band at Klein High School in Spring, Texas.
He became a camp counselor at the ripe age of 13, reportedly by telling the staff that he was 16. Being a camp counselor would eventually become a huge and meaningful part of his life. He went to the University of Texas at Austin, where he graduated in 1984 with a degree in Geography. It was while at UT that he became a camp counselor at Camp Olympia on Lake Livingston, where he worked every summer until he graduated. He had the youngest cabins of boys – 6 and 7-year-olds, a job that he really loved and which helped mold him into the wonderful father that he became. He spoke frequently about teaching riflery – often saying that the best shooters were the girls. After graduation, he went on to work summers at a hunt club in Utopia, Texas – another dream job for him.
It was at UT where Skip met Jim Wade, his best friend for much of his life and the best man at his wedding. Jim was the perfect friend to Skip, and they did what all best buddies do – dumb things that made life so much fun. The two of them shared so many infamous moments together. Skip was prone to kidney stones and the first one he ever had went undetected because he just thought he pulled a muscle in his back. He was in college at the time and it reached the point where Skip was having trouble walking, so he asked Jim to massage his back. Being the friend he was, he gladly complied before taking him to the emergency room. Although it required surgery, recalling to other people that Jim had been massaging Skip’s back before realizing it was an emergency always resulted in a lot of explaining. Skip told many stories about the amount of attention he received from the nurses while recovering (which we all pretended to believe).
As apartment roomies, Jim said Skip had some secret recipes especially when money was tight, like adding flour to canned spaghetti sauce to make it go longer (can you say gross?). If you knew Skip, you also knew that he loved peas which he literally ate constantly and put into everything including mac and cheese. Jim is convinced he did that because he knew that would keep him from eating Skip’s food.
One of their favorite projects together was working together to fix Skip’s Oldsmobile Cutlass at his parents’ house. One day, Jim had to get cleaned up for work but couldn’t use a shower in the house because one was broken and the other was in Skip’s parents room and they were asleep. Like any normal person, Skip suggested that they get cleaned up at a high-pressure car wash. The pressure from the wand sliced Jim’s head open while he was washing his hair! Not to mention, how silly they must’ve looked bathing in the stall of a high-pressure car wash.
The stories are endless and have brought us many laughs over the years. Somewhere there is a film called “Hunting with Skip and Jim Adventures” that we have all watched multiple times. Let’s just say that it involved a taxidermy deer head and making it look like a deer was eating out of their hands.
It was also at UT that Skip met Melinda – known to many as Mel and “sweetie” to Skip. Skip and Melinda met the summer of 1984 while they both lived in a coed dorm on campus and were introduced by mutual friends. Melinda’s favorite number has always been 22 and Skip was 22 when they met, and he lived in dorm room 222. A number that would be present in their life many times over, including the day of Skip’s death being 12/20/2022. Skip graduated that fall and by then the two had fallen in love. They agreed to make a go at a long-distance relationship, which obviously worked out. Skip and Melinda got married on August 16, 1986, in San Antonio, Texas and went on to live in Houston near Skip’s family. In 1987, their first child, George Michael Reeves III was born. Two years later, Becky was born.
During their early married life, Skip worked in retail as a garden center manager with Builder’s Square – putting his love for yard work and plants to good use. He later became a facilities manager working in the garage business for several years – a career he really loved because what man’s man doesn’t love a garage? When Becky was getting ready to enter Kindergarten, Skip made a huge decision to leave the corporate world and become a stay-at-home dad many years before it was the cool thing to do. He felt strongly about having a parent at home, mainly because he said he knew what he did as a young boy when he was alone at home and that scared him. It was at that point that Skip and Melinda decided to have a third child and Tori was born in 1997. Once Tori turned six weeks old, Mel returned to work and Skip took on the full-time responsibilities of raising their youngest daughter and caring for George and Becky. As fate would have it, years later when he was diagnosed with Pompe disease, it allowed him to be comfortably at home while dealing with the progression of his disease.
Skip and Melinda have shared many homes together, but Skip’s favorites were in the Texas hill country and along the Gulf Coast. In Boerne, Texas, Skip lived on 10 acres, giving him the ability to fulfill his dream of having a riding lawn mower and being able to watch animals at play from his bathroom seat. Skip’s home on Tiki Island, Texas, house was truly a dream fulfilled with the Galveston Bay as his front yard. Skip and Melinda eventually made Tiki Island his final home, enjoying many a sunset and many meals of fresh fish, which was his absolute joy.
Skip had many loves beyond his family including hunting, fishing, playing the guitar, music, genealogy, history, cooking, grilling, barbecuing, and traveling around to national parks as much as possible. He loved the Houston Astros and attended games in the Astrodome as a youngster. Nothing made him prouder than seeing them win two World Series titles in his lifetime. He loved football and he and Melinda were dedicated UT Longhorn fans. He never got over losing the Houston Oilers to the state of Tennessee.
He was the kind of person that didn’t know a stranger and could figure out within a few minutes how he was related to them. (No lie, Skip figured out how Jim and he were related by some distant relatives in the Carolinas). He completed a family genealogy book on his mother’s side (which he published and gave as gifts to family members). He also completed genealogy research on Melinda’s family. He could readily spout facts about each.
Skip had a wicked and juvenile sense of humor that he used at just the right moment to get him out of trouble with Melinda. He loved music and his all-time favorite band was the Beatles. When raising Tori and carting her around for school pick-ups and drop offs and attendance at the kids’ various sporting events, it was Beatles music that he played, telling Tori that he refused to let her listen to the Wiggles or anything like it.
Above all else, Skip loved family. He was a great dad to his three children and adored his granddaughter, Juliet. He loved extended family and was often nostalgic about his younger days when spending times with cousins on both sides of the family. In the final decade of his life, he and Melinda spent as much time as possible traveling with a special adapted Suburban that he drove. His very favorite national park is the Great Smokey Mountains, which he and Melinda visited three times.
Skip is survived by his wife, Melinda Guerra Reeves; by his son, George M. Reeves III and his wife, Agatha Kiecun Reeves; his daughter, Rebecca Ann Nelson, and her husband, Louis J. Nelson IV, and their daughter, Juliet Helen Nelson; and his daughter, Victoria Michelle Reeves; three siblings – his sisters, Ginger Anderson and Tracey Jones, and his brother, Randy Reeves, and their families. He is also survived by Melinda’s parents whom he considered as his own, Fidelio Guerra Jr. and Cynthia Garza Guerra. He was preceded in death by both of his parents, George M. Reeves and Nancy Searcy, as well as by some of his favorite musicians, including John Lennon, George Harrison, Eddie Van Halen, Prince and Jimi Hendrix.
A Celebration of Skip’s life will be held on Saturday, Jan. 7, 2023, at Forest Park South in Pearland, Texas at 2:00 p.m. with a reception to follow. He loved nothing more than getting together with friends and family he hasn’t seen in awhile and would be happy to see us celebrating in a way that honors him. Skip’s favorite color was turquoise and we encourage you to wear something turquoise in his honor.
In lieu of flowers, donations in Skip’s name can be made to the Muscular Dystrophy Association or the National Organization for Rare Diseases (NORD).
SHARE OBITUARY
v.1.8.17