Mike Pyron

Appraiser had love of numbers

— In Mike Pyron’s more than 30 years as a real estate appraiser, he earned the highest certifications in his field from the Appraisal Institute, making him a sought-after expert beyond state lines.

“Mike loved numbers,” said his wife, Patricia Pyron. “The larger the number, the greater he liked it and that’s what led him to appraisals.”

Michael Taylor Pyron of Sherwood died Sunday at Lonoke Nursing and Rehabilitation Center from Parkinson’s disease complications.

He was 64.

In 1966, Pyron played forward for the Class AAA state championship basketball team at Little Rock Central High School. He continued to play in local men’s leagues as a young adult and later coached his two sons at Immaculate Conception Catholic School in North Little Rock.

“He had a winning attitude and Jonathan and I were ... never the best players on the team, so he had no reservation about benching us to help the team do better,” his son, Tommy Pyron, said with a laugh. “So he was a fair coach.”

In the late 1970s, he opened Pyron & Associates, which had offices in Jonesboro, Fayetteville, Fort Smith and Little Rock. It closed in the late 1990s.

“We’d look at the three approaches to value — cost, sales comparison, income approach,” said his son, Jonathan Pyron, a residential real estate appraiser. “A report could be as simple as a single page or a full narrative report, 100 pages with photographs.”

Some of Pyron’s clients included Wells Fargo and Bank of America.

“There was not a bank or financial institution in the nation that he did not do work for,” Jonathan Pyron said. “He covered a full spectrum.”

Pyron also gave young appraisers a chance to show their skills.

“People would approach him and ask him about the real estate appraisal field and he’d allow people to come in and try to study, offer them a desk and the ability to make a living,” Jonathan Pyron said.

In 1991, then-Gov. Bill Clinton appointed Pyron as the founding chairman of the Arkansas Appraiser Licensing and Certification Board.

“He and another appraiser in town actually spearheaded the legislation,” Jonathan Pyron said. “That board now covers the entire state of Arkansas for anyone who wants to do appraisal work.”

However, the stress of his job came to the forefront when he was called as an expert witness for the prosecution during the investigation of Whitewater Development Corp. during Clinton’s presidency.

“That was probably one of the things that led to the end of the appraisal business for him because it was so stressful,” Jonathan Pryon said, adding his father retired in 2004. “I remember one question the prosecutor asked him, the prosecutor goes, ‘Well Mr. Pyron, I believe you think you’re smarter than everyone else.’ [My father said], ‘No sir, I’m not, I’m just a real estate appraiser.’”

Aside from his career, Pyron enjoyed running a concession stand at War Memorial Stadium in the 1970s and ’80s and passing on wisdom to his children with “long explanations and speeches,” his sons said.

Though serious about work, Pyron enjoyed cutting up with his family.

“I do vividly remember one Thanksgiving where he and I went to a local neighborhood basketball court and we played some one-on-one and he beat me and I was a teenager,” Tommy Pyron said. “So in the Thanksgiving dinner prayer, he said, ‘Dear Lord, I pray my son Tommy will learn to be a better sport’ ... or something like that. He had a real sense of humor.”

Arkansas, Pages 8 on 01/16/2013

Upcoming Events