Chef Marshall Welsh in Batesville, Miss. on Wednesday, June 26, 2024. (©Bruce Newman)

By Marshall Welsh

I was deeply saddened by the passing of my high school friend and teammate Mike Seekins of Macon, Georgia this week. He excelled in sports as the starting tight end in football while also lettering in baseball and basketball.  

After high school Mike accepted a football scholarship to Presbyterian College in South Carolina. The loss of Mike will surely be felt by many that he touched every day with his reminders to leave a positive wake and remember to “Do your good deed for the day.”

Mike owned a restaurant in our home town of Macon, aptly named, Famous Mike’s.  His good nature,  the world wide web, and many whose pilgrimage to see the Allman Brothers resting place at Rose Hill Cemetery,  brought customers to his restaurant from all over the world.  

From day one in his original location in Jones County, he kept a guest book for anyone to sign and it was filled with international travelers who made the trip to enjoy his world class scratch made biscuits, sweet rolls, burgers hot off the griddle, and home cooked meals.

Mike had grown up in the restaurant business working at Kag’s and soaking up business acumen at light speed not found in most colleges. Allman Brothers, Georgia Bulldog, and Mercer University fans were drawn to his welcoming and comforting décor, great service and great food.

Mike loved music and was connected locally with that scene and served such charitable organizations as Depaul USA Daybreak/Sheridan Center.  He was always pleased and willing to help local coaches and teams with their catering needs.  

Having been in this business for nearly five decades, I had my concerns over his ability to pull off the magnitude of such big orders and at the same time serve his restaurant customers, but Mike kept that positive wake rolling without complaint and in fact, showing much gratitude, always rising to the occasion and making it happen.  What a lesson for me to learn there.

I met Mike in 1979 when I matriculated to Stratford Academy my senior year of high school.   I was taking an Algebra II course in summer school, a course I had never had, but needed to graduate alongside my senior class.   

Academic standards are quite high at Stratford, so as a transfer I had my work cut out for me to graduate and letter in two sports.  On the way down the hall after Mr. Griff Ethridge’s Algebra class, I was in a hurry.  

Mike called to me, “How about slow down and have a little comradery?”  He was right.  You see, I was preoccupied with driving across town for my appointment with my former high school teacher to tutor me in Algebra just to get through my homework.  I was ashamed to let them know I’d never taken the subject before and more so that I didn’t understand it.  Surely God created math, but it must have been the devil who put the alphabet in it.

From Mike’s urging, now forty-six years ago, the lesson is to slow down the dash to our next task; show some comradery; live life to its fullest; leave a positive wake, and do your good  deed for  the day.