Arlayne Helen Clow

Arlayne Clow was born to George and Edna Larson on January 11, 1937. She grew up in North Dakota and attended the University of North Dakota and the University of Nevada in Reno. Eventually, she earned a bachelor’s degree from the University of North Dakota and a master’s degree from Central Washington University.

She married George Benjaminson and, after a brief stint of working for the Boeing Company, she became a secondary school teacher of “business subjects,” including typing and accounting. George and Arlayne adopted two babies named Erik and Kristianne. Today, Arlayne has seven grandchildren.

Divorced from George, she and two friends took up square dancing, where Arlayne met Bill Clow and was married again in 1984. She became a teacher at the Best Alternative High School in the Lake Washington School District, until she retired in 1992. A beloved and respected teacher, Arlayne was always proud of what her students accomplished under her guidance. She was especially proud of the women whom she guided into reentering the work force and of the high school students who blossomed under her tutelage. A plaque from her Best School students calls her a “counselor, advisor, teacher, mentor and mom.”

In 1994, she and Bill joined the Peace Corps where she served as an accounting teacher for two and one-half years in the South Pacific island nation of Vanuatu.

Since 2000, she and Bill have been living in the retirement community of Panorama, where Arlayne has volunteered as a “CASA” (Court-Appointed Special Advocate) for children in the court system. She continued to build an ever larger community of friends until her dying day on October 14, 2018.