Mike Veneman, standup comic, teacher

by Brian McKim & Traci Skene on October 31st, 2010

Mike Veneman was attending Kent State nearly a quarter century ago, heading toward a Ph.D with the intent of becoming a professor, when he quit school to do standup comedy. Eventually, he realized his dream of becoming a teacher when he established Comedy 101, a comedy workshop through which Veneman taught standup for nearly a decade.  He was diagnosed with amyotrphic lateral sclerosis (ALS, or Lou Gehrig’s Disease), which eventually forced him to quit performing about a year ago. He posted about his increasingly dire health situation on Thursday:

Well, lungs too weak for trach

Coming off Saturdaypp
Loved each and every moment with you

I see The light LOL. Remember the laughter and the joke

That’s my tlme. Mike V

It appears Veneman has died.

In the intervening three or four days, dozens of friends and colleagues posted their goodbyes on Veneman’s Facebook page. It’s quite a sight to see. Reading the posts, one gets a sense of just how profound and far-reaching Veneman’s influence was and how much he touched the lives of comedians in Northeast Ohio, the midwestern U.S. and well beyond.

We posted about his predicament on our Facebook page and tried to drive as many folks to befriend him (and wife Cris Veneman) as we could, as it seemed the end was near.

It must be nice for Mike to have seen just how much he was loved.

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