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Michael Leroy McBride, age 78, passed in his sleep sometime during the night July 22, 2023, a resident of Assisted Living of Mesa in Mesa, Arizona. Mike was born at Gila General Hospital in Globe, Arizona. on Nov. 16, 1944, the oldest son of John Robert and Ada Alice McBride’s three children.
Mike fell in love with the camera in grade school, so became the Journalism class photographer at Globe High. By the time Globe High School graduated him in the Class of ’64 he’d already enlisted in the US Navy, where he continued his training in photography. Mike met Bonnie Courson while stationed at the US Naval base in El Centro, California. They married in 1968, shortly before he was discharged. They promptly returned to Arizona and lived the majority of their lives in the Valley. He attended three years of college, studying art, photography, drafting and computer science, receiving an AA in Business Marketing. After a short time as a freelance photographer, he worked mostly in tech projects around Maricopa County.
Mike and Bonnie loved visiting Globe on weekends and often talked of retiring there. By the time Mike’s health prevented him from working, he’d taken up gem cutting as a hobby. Unfortunately, he was losing his eyesight, and Mike was someone who couldn’t function without his sight. Everything he had ever been interested in required it.
In January 2013, just as Bonnie was preparing to retire, she passed away in a diabetic coma. Mike moved to Oregon for a few years to be near their son Patrick. He returned to Arizona in 2017 and lived with his sister Joyce McBride in Central Heights before relocating to Mesa in March 2022. Mike’s ashes will eventually be scattered near our childhood home in the Pinal Mountains.
Mike is survived by his son Michael Patrick McBride and his children; his sister Joyce McBride and family; and two nephews and three nieces from brother James Gentry. His brother Don McBride passed in Globe in November 2013.
