Melissa Warren

Melissa Kay Warren passed away on September 10, 2025, in Fargo, ND, after a short battle with a very aggressive case of Stage IV Metastatic Breast Cancer.

Melissa was the second child of four born to Maurice Baker, Jr and Barbara Oman Baker on May 1, 1967, at Wesley Hospital in Wadena, Minnesota.

Melissa attended elementary and high school in New York Mills, Minnesota where she was an excellent student and avid cheerleader who loved art and literature. After graduation in 1985 she attended Bemidji State University where she obtained degrees in English and Office Administration. Melissa was blessed with amazing organizational skills, intelligence and a quick-wit. Melissa was also an eloquent writer and entertaining storyteller--traits she likely inherited from both of her parents. Those talents made it logical for her to choose a major in English. After graduation from BSU in 1989 she later taught English and Office Administration classes as a graduate student while she worked on her Masters in English at Bemidji State.

It was during this post-graduate time that Melissa's friend Teri Hanson introduced Melissa to her boyfriend, Mike Bauck's roommate who was also named Mike on July 14, 1993. Mike doesn't remember if it was just a meeting or a an actual blind date, but that didn't really matter to him since all he remembers is it was the day he met his best friend and love of his life. They married on December 17, 1994, at the Hallett House Bed and Breakfast in Crosby, Minnesota that was owned by her aunt and uncle Kathy and Wesley Pernula.

Melissa began her professional career at Telnet call centers in 1994 in management and quality control in New York Mills which eventually led her to being employed by State Farm in Bloomington, IL, in 1997 as a quality assurance analyst in Customer Response Center (CRC) Administration only 6 weeks after giving birth to their first child Sam. Jake was added to their family in 2000. Since Melissa's talents were in efficiency, organization and communication she began helping to establish the quality improvement program at State Farm and later creating the Quality Center, which performed call center quality monitoring across the enterprise. Later, Melissa worked as a business analyst, contributing to SAMS development and aiding in the transition of Agency Resource functions to Agency Sales Resources. This led her to P&C Claims Subrogation Services, as a staff assistant, serving in the Claims Services' intranet section and as a compliance coordinator, where she had the privilege to work at the original State Farm "high-rise" building in downtown Bloomington in Enterprise Compliance & Ethics. While downtown she first served as a staff compliance analyst in what is now known as the Compliance Issues Management team, before moving to the Compliance Risk and Control Assessment team in June 2014, and finally landing in the Office of Privacy in October 2022 before retiring in 2024. State Farm was a company that Melissa was immensely proud to work there for almost the entirety of her professional career.

After retirement, Melissa was able to live full-time in Minnesota and she and her husband, Mike, began to enjoy country living on their Lil' Patch o' Heaven "Up North" in Sebeka, Minnesota, that they had been building since 2017. Melissa made time for new hobbies like gardening, trail-blazing, hiking, landscaping and raising a productive brood of laying hens. For those that had been to Melissa and Mike's home you would know that she also had a flair for decorating and her home always looked a showroom for antiques and "farmhouse-industrial chic." Melissa still frequently made trips to Bloomington to visit her State Farm friends from time to time while visiting her kids Sam and Jake, who she considered to be her and Mike's greatest accomplishments and true joys in life.

Despite such a short battle with cancer, Melissa lived life with no regrets, nor did she have any advice for anyone struggling in the same situation since she believed it was important to "hoe your own row" and do what you believe is best for you and your family.

Preceding Melissa in death were her parents, Maurice and Barbara, father-in-law Bradley Warren, sister-in-law, Michelle Heaton, and her aunts and uncles, Shirley and Ernie Grewe & Melton Dougherty, Ladelle and Charles Neal, Roger and Floy Baker, Mary Lou Froehlich, John Baker, John Oman, Mark Oman and Peter Warren.

Surviving Melissa is her husband Michael, children Sam Warren (Kenneth Woodard) and Jake Warren (Kathleen Nguyen) all of Bloomington, mother-in-law, Anita Warren, her second mother and aunt Kathy (Wesley) Pernula, sister Paula (Gary) Peterson, brothers, Richard Baker, Jason Baker, Rick Eden, sister-in-law, Kim (Dan) Frischman, brother-in-law, Rodney (Leah) Warren, aunts and uncles, James (Sandy) Baker; Ted (June) Oman; Mary Oman, Kathy Oman, Robert Froehlich, Randy Warren, Ann Warren Kost, along with a host of nieces, nephews, cousins and friends.

Service information is currently pending.

Schoeneberger Funeral & Cremation Service, Perham, MN (218) 346-5175 www.schoenebergerfh.com