Justin Anthony Mitchell

Justin Anthony Mitchell (44) of Duluth, MN, left our world on December 29, 2025. He was born on May 26, 1981, in Dell City, OK, but moved to Hot Springs, AR while still a baby and spent his early childhood there. At age 8, all long, lean, and towheaded, he made his way with his family to his mother’s native South Dakota where he better blended into the wheat and range grasses to which he bore such striking similarity. A couple years later, his family found themselves landed on the Sheeler farm, a small segment of emerald corn and cottonwoods on the banks of the Belle Fourche River in Vale SD. For those uninitiated in the intricacies of the French language, “Belle Fourche” translates into “Beautiful Forks,” and it was this emerald farm upon the banks of this small Sheeler section of those beautiful forks that would become Justin’s North Star — a place to anchor his endless future travels, shape the remarkable man he would become, and call home. He attended and graduated from Newell High School — an unbelievably brilliant child, but an utterly passable student. He joined the SD National Guard which took him to locations around the globe, like Nicaragua, Iraq, and…Sturgis. He took some college courses here and there, but rarely could they scratch the itch of curiosity that so defined him. Instead, he always seemed to throw himself, often with little regard for self or sensibilities, into every single thing that captured his highly attuned eye for wonder. To know Justin was to witness curiosity manifest - his thirst for knowledge buzzed inside him like a hive of bees. He loved music, literature, games, history, technology, the outdoors, and on and on and on. He was an artist, a photographer, a designer, an animator, and more. He was quixotic, kind, and funny. All gangly and pointed elbows, he was clumsy throwing a football, but moved with a ballerina’s grace on a mountain bike. He built his own furniture, repaired his own vehicles, and paddled his own canoe. He could beat you at chess, beat you at Magic the Gathering, and beat you in a spur-of-the-moment sushi rolling competition. All of it was self-taught, and every bit of it was exceptional. He was a unique and wholly remarkable individual — a true Renaissance man. In 2010, he met a pretty girl named Summer, who was born in April, who was working in a bar in Spearfish, South Dakota. She shared that she was going to a Ween concert soon, and it so happened that Justin was a big fan of that very band. He also happened to be the proud bearer of a Ween tattoo, which he promptly displayed for her in what one must assume was some blatant bid for her approval. It was a moment of kismet. She was an artist, and artists often have soft spots for eclectic music and eclectic men, so his bid seemed to impress that pretty girl enough to keep talking with him, and eventually marrying him and building a life together. He and Summer traveled around the country, visiting bright city skyscrapers, small town cheese festivals, and all manner of other wild and random places. They moved to Portland, then Denver, then Duluth. They bought a canoe, they bought a house, they bought themselves fancy cheeses and fancy crackers and ate them like fancy people. They camped and swam and gleefully drank in their lives like gluttons. In 2017 they pulled out all the stops and built a baby, Bishop, who promptly became Justin’s best friend and proudest accomplishment. He is their finest work. While he left us too soon, and with not nearly enough warning, we all feel so fortunate to have shared this realm with him that we’ll do our best to excuse his Irish goodbye. We are heartbroken, but he was generous enough to share his eyes, as blue as the Lake Superior, his smile, bright with a glint of mischief, and his unquenchable curiosity, with his son Bishop, so we take some solace in still getting to relish in these parts of him.

He is survived by his wife Summer and son Bishop, his mother and father Marilyn and Sheldon Sheeler, sisters Amanda Mitchell (Marty Blomberg), Michelle Urias (Albert), and Lori Ellefson, brother Jonathan Sheeler (Chantel), mother-in-law Kris Venner, father-in-law Ivan Venner (Colleen), and many nephews, nieces, and extended family members. He will be deeply missed.

Funeral details are pending.