BioA: Lackey, Mr./Mrs. Earl (Gold - 2014)

Contact: Robert Lipprandt
bob@wiclarkcountyhistory.org 

Surnames: Lackey, Staebler, Zuiker

----Source: The Tribune - Phonograph (Abbotsford, WI) 7/09/2014

Earl and Karen Lackey will celebrate 50 years of marriage on July 12, 2014, at Alaska Raceway Park, Palmer, Alaska.

They met after a football game during Karen’s first year of teaching English at Waterford High School in Waterford. They were married at Holy Cross Catholic Church in Deerfield, Ill., on July 11, 1964. Karen’s sister, Suzan Zuiker, was maid of honor and Bill Staebler, Earl’s friend since grade school, was the best man.

They lived in Waterford, first in an apartment, and then bought a house along the river.

Karen taught English and drama, assisted in play production (costumes) and coached forensics. Earl worked as an engineer at the Burlington Brass Works, then owned and operated Waterford Racing Motors, and later worked for J. I. Case Company as an agricultural products rep and then in sales in the concrete pump division.

They purchased the family farm in 1970 and raised beef and horses. Their son Jim was born while they lived in Waterford.

Earl and Karen moved to Curtiss, where Earl worked as a sales rep for Galvin Tractor in Abbotsford and they bought a dairy farm and continued to raise beef until they got the idea of running a dairy. Michelle, Michael and John were born on the farm.

They added two small farms to the original parcel and milked 70 head of dairy cows and ran 555 acres. They sold the farm and earl bought a truck and hauled various products until they answered an ad to build a dairy in Alaska.

Under contract, the Lackey family moved to Alaska in 1983 and built a dairy at Pt. Mackenzie, which eventually grew to 1,300 aces and 250 head of cows. After it was operational, Earl returned to heavy equipment sales, first of NC Caterpillar and then for Yukon Equipment. He retired in 2014, but still serves as a sales consultant.

Karen taught GED classes at Palmer Correctional Center and vocational classes at a JTPA program and worked for the State of Alaska as a clerk-typist for the Department of Corrections and legal secretary in the attorney general’s office. Then she returned to teaching (English, history, AP world history and AP art history) at Wasilla High School and then Colony High school until she retired in 2008.
           

 

 


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