Pub. 1 2021 Issue 1

36 He was always a very intelligent guy. He always pretended to be the dumbest guy in the room, and he was probably the smartest. Just a genuinely great guy that was shrewd in business, charitable, and one of those guys you want on your team. — Bobby Hauck M ichael Tilleman grew up on a farm. His father once said that he was as dumb as a cow, something that Mike disagreed with, noting that cows always knew the right gate when it was time to come home. Mike told those he knew that he got his sense of humor from his father, Hank, and his business sense from his mother, Irma. Both his parents taught him the value of hard work, something he never shied away from. “Montana, where I grew up, it was all about work ethic. I did 20,000 hay bales in the summers,” said Mike. He attended grade school in a one- room school. During his seventh grade year, Mike told the teacher he knew everything about the eighth grade and wanted to jump right into his freshman year. She told him he would have to pass the end of year exam to skip eighth grade; he passed. In a high school essay, he lat - er stated he would not recommend it to anyone, nor do it again, because he thought he could have learned more had he finished his seventh grade with his class. He wanted to play professional basebal l, but basebal ls were in short supply on the farm. Never one to let a smal l obstacle stand in his way, he practiced pitching with rocks. Mike would run mi les to move tractors and trucks, often completing the task so quickly his dad wouldn’t bel ieve it had been done. He would wear weights on his arms and legs and run beside the hay wagon bucking bales. Not TRIBUTE — MIKE TILLEMAN