After graduation from Big Piney High School in 1973, Mark Mickelson enrolled at Chadron State College in Chadron, Nebraska. With a partial football scholarship in hand, Mickelson was excited to experience college life and further his education. In the fall of his sophomore year, an appendicitis attack and surgery ended his football and his interest in college diminished. With that, Mark travel back to Big Piney and returned to ranch life. In 1977, Mickelson traveled to Boulder and found employment at a bank in that Colorado city. In 1978, he was called back to Big Piney and there would start a thirty-eight years career in the banking industry.
Mark Mickelson spent these thirty-eight years as a banker in various communities in Southwestern Wyoming. During his fourteen-year stint at Kemmerer, he served as President of its First Wyoming Bank. He would serve as the Regional Senior Credit Officer for First Wyoming Bank for all its western banks. Later, Mickelson served as the state-wide Senior Credit Advisor for Key Bank of Wyoming. After a move to Jackson Hole, Mark served as Senior Credit Officer for First Interstate Bank of Wyoming. Mark Mickelson finished his banking career as the Branch Manager of the Bank of Sublette County and retired from there in 2016.
Community service has also played an important part of Mark Mickelson’s life. As a nine-year board member, including a term as chairman, of the Wyoming Community Foundation, Mickelson has served the needs of the communities of Sublette County as well as those across the entire state. Mark has served eighteen years on Sublette County advisory board and served on a state-wide special committee for distribution of funds dealing with the effects of the COVID crisis within Wyoming. Mark Mickelson has provided both financial and administrative support to a multitude of local community projects including childhood development centers in the Kemmerer, Pinedale, Big Piney, and Jackson communities. Mickelson has served on the boards for the Subletter County SAFV Taskforce as well as Rendezvous Point Senior Center in Pinedale. Lastly, Mickelson has served three years as a delegate to the State Republican Central Committee and has been chairman of Sublette County Republican Central Committee.
Mark Mickelson’s involvement with Masonic covers a span of forty-six years. As an active member of four lodges, Mickelson served a Worship Master for Big Piney Lodge #47, Kemmerer Lodge #33 and Franklin Lodge #31 in Pinedale. He is an active member of the York Rite and Scottish Rite in Wyoming. He is the Grand Commander of the Grand Commandery Knights Templar of Wyoming. Mark served as the Potentate of Korean Shrine across southern Wyoming and Grand Master of the Grand Lodge Ancient, Free and Accepted Masons of Wyoming. Mark Mickelson has served nine years as a member of the Board of Governors for the Shriner’s Children Hospital in Salt Lake City including two years as the Board Chairman. A remarkable achievement for remarkable individual.