Verle Mickish papers

Verle Mickish was born on September 27, 1928, in Greeley, Colorado. He grew up living in a sorority house operated by his parents, Leonard and Edith Mickish. Mickish excelled in drawing and painting as a child and took his first college art class at the age of fifteen.

He received his BA degree in Art Education from Colorado State College of Education (CSCE) where he was editor of the 1950 Cache La Poudre annual. That summer, he went to Los Angeles as a singer and got a job drawing one-minute caricatures of celebrities and audience guests on the daily Bill Welch live TV show on KTTV. Due to the Korean Conflict, he returned to Greeley to finish his senior year. In 1951, he joined the U.S. Marine Corps (USMC). The USMC cleared him for secret classification, and he was assigned as a staff artist in the General’s Headquarters Squadron. He illustrated classified materials, created instructional filmstrips, TAD aboard carriers, helicopter exercises, animated cockpit flight images, Leadership School visuals, and drawings for General McGee’s military report logs.

After serving in the USMC, Mickish taught K-12 art classes and became the K-12 Art Coordinator in Boulder, Colorado. He earned his master's degree from CSCE while teaching on a fellowship at College High and during summer sessions at CSCE. In 1955, he married a fellow student, Virginia (Ginny) Johnson and they had one daughter, Valerie Mickish. Following his time at CSCE, he attended the Art Center School in Los Angeles and subsequently taught art in Cheyenne, Wyoming, and at Boulder Valley Schools, where he became Art Coordinator in 1959.

In 1970, Mickish earned his Doctorate in Arts Education from Arizona State University and joined the art faculty at Georgia State University (GSU) in 1971, where he was known as Dr. Mickish. Over his 25 years as a professor and administrator at GSU, he established himself as a highly respected and nationally recognized art educator. Mickish was also an active artist, published illustrator, and cartoonist. He conducted workshops, authored books, and created over 300 published illustrations, along with more than 200 cartoons, caricatures, and corporate images. Additionally, he wrote a junior high art textbook.

Mickish received several distinguished awards, including the Distinguished Georgia Educator award from the National Art Education Association (NAEA) and the title of Distinguished Fellow and NAEA Art Educator of the Year in 1983. He was also honored by President Carter in a White House ceremony for his contributions to cultural arts work in Brazil. These recognitions led to invitations for him to present approximately 800 instructional workshops and keynote addresses throughout the U.S., Canada, Europe, and South America.

He retired from GSU in 1996 as a professor emeritus. Following his retirement, he continued to paint, exhibit his work, mentor students, conduct workshops, give presentations, and create a monthly cartoon for the Emory Eye Center. In 2006, he was named the Outstanding National Retired Art Educator of the Year. In 2010, the University of Northern Colorado honored him with a “60-Year Retrospective” exhibition featuring 100 pieces of his artwork. Although his eyesight was diminishing due to dry and wet macular degeneration, he kept a positive attitude until his death on July 14, 2016.