Michelene Selby Becker was born on October 22, 1943, to George and Adeline (Johnson) Selby in Portland, Oregon. Shortly thereafter her family moved back to Scottsbluff, where three sisters (Norma, Andrea, and Georgene) joined her family.

Mickey graduated from Scottsbluff High School in 1961. She went on to Augusta College and graduated in 1965 as a Registered Nurse.

During her college years, God revealed Himself on a desperate night. And then Mickey spent the years of her life fulfilling the good works that God prepared beforehand to be her way of life (Ephesians 2:8-10).

After a few years of teaching at the Nursing School, she married LeRoy Becker of Bayard in 1967.

They lived in the home that he built for her. She spent the next 28 years raising their five children: Michael, Greg, Gretchen, Heidi, and Stephen. Some of the activities that display her life and values are that she and LeRoy were charter members of Community Bible Church in Bayard and she dedicated years to ministry as a Sunday School teacher, Child Evangelism teacher, AWANA leader, Bible Study and Good News leader. She hosted St. Jude’s bike-athons, volunteered in her children’s classrooms, entertained and cared for her extended family, and worked as a parttime nurse at Chimney Rock Villa. As her children grew, she especially enjoyed going to visit her grandkids and children, having her grandkids come for sleepovers, and spending time with her group of young moms that she and Toni Lichius discipled. She was regularly found sitting over her Bible or a devotional, in the middle of writing a letter to her Compassion International children, or signing a birthday card to a loved one.

It was evident to her family that Mickey lived out the words of the Apostle Paul in Philippians 3, “Yet whatever gains I had, these I have come to regard as loss because of Christ. More than that, I regard everything as loss because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For His sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and regard them as rubbish in order that I may gain Christ… I want to know Christ and the power of His resurrection and the sharing of His sufferings by becoming like Him in His death.”

Mickey was joyful and diligent; her gentleness and intentionality was known to everyone, to the very end.

She practiced the presence of God and committed everything to prayer. In her last decade with us, she suffered from dementia, but even then the peace of God, which surpasses understanding, guarded her heart and her mind in Christ Jesus (Phil. 4:5-7) God never let her forget Him. Her last 6 years she made her home at the Western Nebraska Veterans Home. She was deeply loved by their incredible staff and fellow members.

Mickey is survived by her three sisters, five children and their spouses, 21 grandchildren, 3 great-grandchildren, and many beloved nieces and nephews. She was preceded in death by her husband, LeRoy Becker.