Mourning Good Friends: RIP Kery Murakami, Mike Hall, Tara O'Leary

Saluting three bright lights who are gone from this world but whose love of journalism, art and music will live on forever.

The thing about getting older, just about being alive I suppose, is people you care about keep passing away. In recent weeks, I’ve been stunned to learn that several people who meant a lot to me at various times in my life are no longer with us. About a month after the fact, I learned that Kery Murakami, a bright, shining guidepost to so many of us at our beloved Michigan Daily (University of Michigan) student newspaper passed away in May. None of us knew that he was battling an aggressive form of ALS and were both shocked at the news of his passing and deeply saddened that we couldn’t be there for him at the end. I wrote the obituary below as tribute and also as my way of saying goodbye to my friend.

Kery was at home in a phone booth, here in the US Senate Press office, He is wearing his favorite tie - a gift from Senator Daniel Inouye.

In recent weeks, I also learned that two other old friends had passed away YEARS AGO, but I had no idea because we were out of touch. You may question how much someone could mean to me if I didn’t know about their death for years, but that’s just how it is. If we’re lucky, our lives intersect with countless others and the relationships can be truly meaningful while they last. When we reconnect, it is instantaneous, or we never do and the memory remains a blessing, a bright light in our mind’s eye.

So it was with artist Tara O’Leary. We met when our kids, now 22, were in first grade together, and I bought a beautiful encaustic (hot wax) landscape painting from her. The corners chipped in a move and she told me to bring it by her studio so she could repair it, and would gently remind me when we bumped into each other around town. I noticed that her studio had closed, thought she had moved and kept meaning to look her up online. I recently found out she passed away in October, 2019! In fairness to myself, I was running all around the country promoting a book that month, but I am horrified that she is gone and that I didn’t know it. I salute Tara and am happy to say that an artist friend of hers is working on repairing her painting, which now has a special significance to me,

By Tara O’Leary

Doing some work on a revision of my first book Big In China, I wanted to get in touch with an old friend, Mike Hall, aka Humble Mike, a great singer/harp player/guitarist who was a white South African who became a global traveler when he turned 18 because he refused to serve in the apartheid Army. He owned a great little club in Beijing called The Pomegranate, where my band sometimes performed - always with him sitting in - and which he allowed me to go to and watch prime time Steelers game aired Monday or Tuesday mornings, though the bar wasn’t open at 8 am. He had satellite TV mostly to air soccer and rugby games, but he hooked me with up his manager and I would sip coffees as the bartender sliced fruit and readied for the day ahead. Great guy, who was fluent in Swahili and Mandarin and was loved by all who knew him in Beijing. Searching for him to reconnect, I found his obituary - he passed away in 2017! Mike, I salute you, your love of music and your international bonhamie. A true man of Africa and of the world.

I wrote Kery’s obituary for Legacy.com in collaboration with Stephanie Hickey, an ex of his who seems to have been a guardian angel to him in his final months. I am forever grateful to her for that. The pain and sadness of finding out that he was dying without any of his Michigan Daily friends knowing - and we all truly loved the guy - is lessened a bit knowing that he was loved and care for. Please take a moment to reach out to an old friend you haven’t talked to in a while and tell them that you’re thinking of them.

KERY MURAKAMI, 1966-2025

A true blue Journalist, Kery Murakami was a New Yorker's New Yorker. A Bronx Science graduate and homegrown Yankees fan until the end, Kery died far too young. In May of 2025, at 58 years of age, he succumbed to an aggressive form of ALS. Kery often mused he had Lou Gehrig beat by 21 years. Like Gehrig, at the end of his life Kery felt lucky to have lived a life doing what he loved. He leaves behind a legacy of intrepid reporting, great writing and deep friendships.

As a lifelong reporter, Kery felt strongly about the integrity of his work, a fact which no one who knew him would dispute. Never without his fedora, Senator Daniel K. Inouye’s personal tie, gifted to him by the Senator himself, rolled up sleeves and ink stains on his shirt pocket, Kery could be easily identified in a reporter scrum, picket line, protest, the halls of Congress or the US Senate Press Gallery.

Kery remains a legend at The Michigan Daily, the University of Michigan student newspaper. He began his professional career while still in school, writing for the Detroit Free Press, then moving on to cover crime in Jersey City for The Jersey Journal. He moved to Seattle to cover politics at the city hall and statehouse level for The Seattle Times and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. He then had a brief layover back in New York before moving on to Washington, DC to cover Congress for a variety of daily publications. What he really loved writing were the human interest pieces that allowed him to flex his ability to find a riveting story in the most mundane of places with otherwise unassuming people, which he notably did on his beat as The DC Rider for The Washington Post.

He founded the Seattle PostGlobe after his former newspaper abruptly ceased its print operation, and was profiled in The Columbia Journalism Review, where Jonathan Peters described him as the "reluctant news entrepreneur." The story described Kery as "equal parts journalist, sprinter, and octopus" and, being "low-key and likable, with an empathetically pessimist demeanor.... He stutters when he speaks and is almost pathologically self-deprecating...." . And there you have Kery Murakami - a scrappy newspaper man, dedicated to his craft.

Kery is survived by his parents, Frank and Hiroko Murakami, of Kyoto Japan, his chosen family from coast to coast and a wide cast of characters whose lives intersected with his own in the most unusual of places.

The best way to honor Kery is to hoist a beer to a friend and donate to ALS research: https://www.als.org/