Goodbye to a Fellow Beekeeper
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Our local bee club planning committee with Tom Miller, second from right.
Goodbye to a Fellow Beekeeper
Our local bee club lost one of its founding members and all around good guy earlier this month. Tom Miller, a Navy veteran, grandfather, gardener and beekeeper died March 9, 2022.
Tom Miller demonstrating how to build a bee hive at a beginning class. (Charlotte Ekker Wiggins photo)
When one starts an educational non-profit, a group like that depends on volunteers like Tom Miller.. Tom would volunteer to get whatever needed done, from making sample equipment to vacuuming the meeting hall after a class or meeting.
In between, he loved his dogs and cared for grandchildren over summer. He also loved to read, the more obscure gardening and beekeeping books the better.
Demonstrating how to use a refractometer at a honey extracting demo. (Charlotte Ekker Wiggins photo)
If there was a gadget nearby, he would either know how to use it or figure it out on the spot. And shortly thereafter make one that he would try to improve.
I met Tom in one of my first beginning beekeeping classes. He was very excited to add bees to his lovely hillside garden, across a valley from mine. Once we toured each other’s garden, the race was on. We often would try to beat each other to plant sales and often shared garden bounty.
When I lost my cat Margaret a few years back, it was Tom who was thoughtful enough to make a head stone for her grave. He understood my attachment to my cats; he felt the same about his rescue dogs.
In keeping with Tom’s generous spirit, his family has donated his beekeeping equipment to our club. We’ve already expanded one teaching apiary in southeast Missouri with some of the equipment and are planning to develop a second teaching apiary in Rolla.
We were lucky to know you, Tom. You will be dearly missed.
