Marian Avis Lacklen

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Marian Avis Lacklen, 86, moved on September 9, 2011. She was born June 29, 1925 in St. Vincent Hospital, Billings, Montana. Soon thereafter she and her parents, Zada and Edward Lacklen, moved to Crawford Nebraska. During grade school her parents and her younger brother John Theodore Lacklen "Ted" moved back to Billings where she graduated from Senior High School in 1943. In 1944 college began at what is now University of Montana at Missoula where she was on the honor roll, awarded a scholarship due to her excellent scholastic performance, inducted into Alpha Lambda Delta, a freshman women's honorary organization for scholastic achievement and inducted into the Spur, an honorary society for women. She also met Phillip Roberts Coulter, a student of ROTC, whom she married in New York City on July 9, 1946. The couple completed their college education at the University of Washington in Seattle where Marian earned her B.A. in economics. Phil attended law school and they then bicycled around much of Western Europe. However, after that trip they divorced having no children.

In Washington D.C. Marian fell in love with traditional folk dancing, a lifetime passion. She also underwent a Jungian analysis through a student of Karl Jung and worked for the CIA as a political analyst. She passed one summer living in an impoverished village in Mexico assisting the townsfolk with technical and educational projects. About 1955 she obtained a Masters in Business Administration from Haas Business School at University of California, Berkeley. She was the first woman to be admitted to the Haas Business School and the first woman in the history of UC Berkeley to obtain an MBA. She also was an avid skier and obtained a lifetime certificate to teach business administration in California's junior colleges.

Marian's passion, though, was social justice and not making money. She obtained a certificate to teach in California's secondary school system and chose to teach high school students in the poorest area of Oakland. She later became a job counselor of the unemployed in Oakland. In the 1970's after living many years in Berkeley she moved to Santa Rosa where she educated herself in computer languages. She became a computer programmer for a grocery wholesale business which she did until her retirement in the early 1990's. During this period she took many seminars on literature, philosophy, dream analysis and religion and personally knew such teachers as Joseph Campbell and Alan Watts. In 1995 she moved back to Billings to be near her mother Zada.

During her retirement Marian became politically active being a founder of the Billings Peace Seekers, a member of the Northern Plains Resource Council and the Green Party. In 2000 her organizational work was instrumental at placing Ralph Nader on the ballot as Montana's Green Party presidential candidate. For many years she attended Billings Unitarian Universalist Church, practiced yoga regularly and continued her studies of civilizations' goddess cultures and of native Americans. She also gardened, loved her cats Mryna and Koyna and made two trips to Turkey.

Marian is survived by her nieces, Charlyn and Bobbie Lacklen, her nephew, John Lacklen, and a great niece, Sofia Lacklen.

Memorial services will be held at Michelotti-Sawyers Mortuary, at 1:00 p.m., Tuesday, September 20. Please bring no flowers but contribute to the Billings' Help for Homeless Pets, 406-896-1700.