Michele Renee Van Leur

Michele Renee Van Leur, age 70, of Colton, passed away unexpectedly on Friday, October 10, 2025, at her friend’s home in Indiana. Funeral arrangements are pending.

Michele was born at Methodist Hospital on April 17, 1955 in Mitchell, SD. Michele was baptized and confirmed at St. Wilfred’s Catholic Church. The majority of her first five years were spent with her grandparents, Almar and M. Loretta Murphy Rask’s home in Letcher, SD where her grandfather ran the hardware store and her grandmother ran a boarding house from the large family home. Sadly, after her grandfather’s death she and her grandmother moved to rural Woonsocket to the Van Leur family farm. She attended Cuthbert Country School where all 8 grades were housed in one room until it’s closure. She then attended St. Joseph’s Catholic School from 4th to 7th grade when it closed and continuing the remainder of her education at Woonsocket Public School where she graduated in 1973. She worked her way through her post graduate studies at SDSU and later Dakota Wesleyan University where she graduated with an Associate of Arts Degree in Nursing. She practiced at Community Bailey Hospital in Chamberlain, operated Brule County Ambulance, practiced in New Mexico in a number of clinical and administrative settings and attained a BS Degree in Allied Health Care Administration, began a business career with United Health Care before returning to South Dakota. In South Dakota she had a long and successful administrative career and last employed with Select Specialty Hospital as the Director of Business Development for Marketing and referral services. Other career achievements included State Office, Appointee to the Governor’s Task force on Nursing Home bed availability, and National Speaker at Multiple Clinical Conferences in the United States and Canada.

However; the greatest achievements of Michele’s life were being blessed to be the mother to her four children and grandmother to their children: Jacqueline Lea Miller Barrick and her sons Peyton and Dallas Crooks SD, Gavin Michael Miller deceased, Dane Andrew Miller Sioux Falls, SD and his daughter Brynlee Tingle Brookings, SD, and Danielle Renee Miller Thompson and her daughters Addison and Harper Queen Creek, Az, special grandson Jurren Hansen, Brookings, SD. They represented her greatest earthly joy and pride. She is also survived by her well-loved Brother Curtis Chlebeck Van Leur (Dr. Paul Chlebeck) and their three children: Marianna, Zoey and Kelvin of Humboldt, SD. She was preceded in death by her son Gavin, her brother Kevin, grandparents Almar and Loretta Rask, Albert and Hazel Van Leur and her Beloved Aunt Leatrice Hoy. Michele will always be grateful for having shared her life with them. To her five other surviving siblings she extends her deepest sadness for their greed and treachery for as they sow so shall they reap and great sorrow will follow them all the days of their lives.