Delmarva said good-bye to Mike Pretl this last Sunday with a memorial service where over a hundred showed up to remember him.
The 76-year old environmentalist and activist died from a heart attack on Christmas day.
He hailed from Baltimore but was known as some who seemed to never meet a cause he didn’t like.
John Grout with the Wicomico Environmental Trust noted, “ At one dinner we shared he was asked teasingly…whether there was one organization on the Lower Shore where he did not sit on the board.”
Grout went on, “Mike loved people and he never met a meeting he didn’t like. In fact, he almost never met a cause he never helped when requested.”
Pretl was married to Michelle Hughes is executive director of the Life Crisis Center in Salisbury.
Her daughter Alex described her loss, saying, “Mike just seemed so permanent. He just seemed like he was somebody who was always going to be there for the latest nonprofit cause or…it’s challenging to think about him not being here.”
Among the dignataries at the memorial service were Wicomico County Council President John Cannon and council member Bill McCain as well as former Delegate Norm Conway.
Mike Pretl was also a big supporter of Delmarva Public Radio regularly appearing on our talk show Delmarva Today.
He will be missed.
