Construction contractor Michael dies

One day Las Vegas construction company owner Kenny Michael bumped into the wife of his good friend, Jim Arnold, and learned through casual conversation that the Arnolds planned to install a swimming pool at their home.

"He asked if anyone had been hired to dig the hole and she said we had not decided who we would use," Arnold, longtime secretary of Culinary Workers Local No. 226, said. "The next morning at 5 I hear this clatter outside, and it was Kenny unloading his backhoe. Four or five hours later, the hole was dug and he left.

"He refused to take any money for the job -- that's the kind of friend he was to a lot of people."

Bruce Kenneth "Kenny" Michael, longtime owner of B.K. Michael Co., an underground utility contractor, died Monday at Nathan Adelson Hospice. He was 54.

Michael was diagnosed a year ago with bone cancer.

Services for the Las Vegas resident of 51 years will be 11 a.m. Saturday at Palm Mortuary on West Cheyenne Avenue. Burial will be private.

"I'd have to say my father's generosity was his greatest quality," said Jeff Michael, a paving contractor and general manager for Precision Asphalt and Grading Corp. in Las Vegas.

"I long admired his determination and his ability to do whatever he wanted to do."

Michael's other son, Steven Michael, also followed in his father's footsteps and today is a backhoe operator for Flippin's Trenching in Las Vegas. Jeff said he too has operated a backhoe, but is nowhere near as skilled as his dad was.

"In his era, my father was one of the best backhoe operators on the West Coast," Jeff said. "He was proficient at digging around utilities and could get his backhoe over a 6-foot fence without breaking the fence."

Arnold said that Michael's company, which opened in 1961 as Kenny Michael Backhoe Service, was a union firm. He belonged to Operating Engineers Local No. 12 in Las Vegas.

And Michael was real good at making friends through his many deeds.

"Where as most of us can count the number of friends we have on one or two of our hands, I never met a person who had made and kept more friends than Kenny Michael," Arnold said. "He did a lot of things for many people without being asked.

"I remember once when we pulled up these 20-foot oleanders from my yard and I just mentioned to Kenny that I had this neighbor who really liked oleanders. He loaded them up and delivered them to the man's driveway."

Born Sept. 2, 1943, in Compton, Calif., Michael was the second of four children of Charles "Mike" Michael and Verda Michael.

Mike was a Hoover Dam worker in the 1930s who brought his family back to Las Vegas in 1947 and long operated Mike's Garage, first on Main Street and later on Las Vegas Boulevard North.

Mike was one of the first local businessmen to provide heavy equipment to the Las Vegas valley, including backhoes and farm machinery. Early on, Kenny developed an interest in the business.

He graduated from Rancho High School in 1960 and attended Brigham Young University for two years.

In the summer of his freshman year, Michael started his backhoe business. By what would have been his junior year, the business had become so successful he could not return to school as the company needed his full-time, year-round attention.

"My father was typical Irish -- short-tempered, very demanding and a perfectionist," Jeff said. "He often said he played as hard as most people worked and worked a lot harder than most people played."

In addition to his two sons and his mother, Michael is survived by a brother, Charles Greg Michael; two sisters, Carolyn Hinze and Judy McNair; and two grandchildren, all of Las Vegas.

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