Douglas County Commissioners remember Mike Boyle

OMAHA, Neb. (WOWT) - The Douglas County Commissioners spent some time at their meeting Tuesday morning remembering their colleague Mike Boyle, who passed away Monday morning.

Person after person took the time to remember Boyle, not only as a politician but also as a friend.

He had a long history of serving the Omaha community and served as mayor in the 1980s.

Boyle, 77, had been fighting complications of diabetes and became ill Sunday. He was taken to a hospital overnight and died at 6:25 a.m. Monday. His daughter Maureen told 6 News that he was in good spirits until he fell ill and his health quickly deteriorated.

“He’s not really gone; he’s just gone ahead. And I appreciate what chairman Borgeson said in reference to, Mike and Anne being together. They were a loving couple and lifelong friends, and I know they’re happy together in a better place,” said James Cavanaugh, Dist. 2 commissioner.

Dist. 3 Commissioner Chris Rodgers shared a memory of his last conversation with Boyle.

“It was good to have the time with him about two weeks ago when he came into the office about 2 weeks ago and not knowing that would be the last time I would see him personally,” Rodgers said Tuesday. “Opportunities just to talk to him and see how he was doing. Of all of the things, I’ll miss the stories and the way he connected just past political things here and just the stories in general.”

Boyle’s narrow victory also gave him a unique connection to Douglas County Election Commissioner Brian Kruse.

”Who could ever forget last May, Mikes’s election when he won by three votes. Three votes. And he’d often call me or when we’d visit, he’d say you know when I get up in the morning and I look in the mirror, I say, ‘three votes, three votes.’ He never forgot that,” Kruse said.

The process of filling Boyle’s seat on the board did not come up at Tuesday’s meeting.

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