Byron D. Miller

Byron D. Miller went to be with Jesus on Thursday September 17th at age 77. Byron is preceded in death by his parents, Roland and Grace Miller, his wife Lynn Miller (Todish) and nephew Jerry Wilbanks. Byron is survived by his daughter, Tracy Miller, brothers and sisters Clyde and Rita Miller, Donald and Danice Miller, and Joyce and Guy Wilbanks, nine nieces and nephews and their spouses, and 15 grandnephews and grandnieces. Byron was born in New Jersey and spent his formative years in the northeast in the various churches where his father was a pastor. Byron’s first paying job was mowing the lawns for the church and the cemetery near his parsonage home. During his school years, Byron attended everything from a one room schoolhouse to a large metropolitan high school.

Byron developed a lifelong love of flying when a church member took an interest in him and taught him how to fly small aircraft. Tragically that friend passed away before Byron received his pilot’s license but he never lost his love for flying. Byron had a tender heart for missions, particularly to unreached people groups. He was very generous with his finances and was a longtime supporter of several Wycliffe and other international missionaries. This stemmed from reading the biography of Nate Saint as a boy which coincided with his flying lessons.

Byron was active in band where he played the trumpet, choir, Christian clubs and as a Sunday school teacher for younger students at church. He was also a certified SCUBA diver and instructor, as well as an avid woodworker.

Byron’s passion for electronics began at a young age. He loved to take things apart to see how they worked and put them back together again. At one point, he had a workshop space in the basement of his home, and he used a defunct electric razor to create an “alarm” to alert him to intruders to the workshop. As a boy, Byron would run the one microphone at his dad’s church from the balcony and that one microphone morphed into a lifelong love affair with being a front of house audio engineer.

At age 14, Byron went to work at Word of Life in New York where he spent the summer rewiring cabins and doing electrical work around the campus. A friend at WOL took Byron to hear a concert at nearby Camp of the Woods in Speculator and the following summer, Byron went to work at Camp of the Woods where he ran sound and worked as a “boat boy” towing water skiers (another lifelong love for Byron) for the next ten years. During his years at CoTW, Byron began a program of recording the daily messages and purchased a duplicator to mass produce the teaching recordings and make them available for attendees to take home or for others to order by mail, and even for broadcast on WMBI radio. At Camp, Byron also met and later married the love of his life, Lynn. Lynn was the personnel director at Camp and Byron often joked about the perks of marrying the “boss.”

After high school, Byron attended Rutger’s University and double majored in electrical engineering and music. Between his sophomore and junior years, Byron took two years off to tour with the Spurrlows. The Spurrlows were a Christian music group that performed all over the U.S., doing concerts in schools and churches. Byron was a sound engineer who also drove the equipment semi and even designed lights and sets for the group. The Spurrlows performed in many notable locations including Madison Square Gardens, various stadiums and arenas, military bases and The White House. Because of his success and experience, he was asked to design and install a sound system for a music venue at Busch Gardens.

After completing college, Byron worked for the National Security Agency where he received a commendation for increasing efficiency and reducing costs in his project there. After NSA, Byron worked for DuPont as an E. I. and computer programmer which led him to a job with Knowledge Ware. During his time with that company, he developed the Information Engineering Workbench, which helped pave the way for CASE tools. Byron continued to work in various companies during the software development craze of the 90’s and early 2000’s including becoming an Associate Partner at Anderson Consulting. Over the course of his professional career, Byron transitioned to a computer industry analyst, beginning with specializing in ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) and then moving on to cloud computing.

In the evenings and on weekends, Byron always made time for audio engineering. From 1982-1985 he ran sound at Calvary Baptist Church in Charlotte, North Carolina for their large choir and orchestra including Christmas and Easter programs and a weekly radio broadcast. Byron continued to run sound at churches in Michigan, Georgia, and Illinois. He served as Technical Director at Village Church of Gurnee, in Illinois for 14 years. He also recorded at his daughter’s high school and other area schools and helped to train students in audio tech for concerts and theater productions. Byron was passionate about training people to run sound and executing his technical responsibilities with excellence. Byron believed his role as an audio engineer was to help facilitate worship and support the gospel message being heard.

After 39 years of marriage, Lynn went to heaven first and Byron moved to live with his daughter first in Georgia and then in Ohio where he spent the last years of his life. Byron leaves a legacy that will only be fully understood on the other side of heaven. 

Byron will be laid to rest at Port Sheldon Township Cemetery in West Olive, Michigan on Saturday, October 3, 2026.

To share a memory of Byron or to leave a special message for his family, please see our Guest Book below.