I am Mark Larsen, son of Kleis. Dad died Saturday in Grants Pass, Oregon. He created and continued the Kleis Larsen Scholarship fund. I wrote this document about him requesting anyone wishing to send flowers to instead send a check to the scholarship fund. I sent it to the Missoulian but, I am not sure they find it sufficiently newsworthy to get it in the paper. I, of course, am convinced that Kleis was a giant in Missoula and the world should at least rename a school for him but, in lieu of that, send some money to you. If you can make this important to the Missoulian, I think there are a lot of people who would consider sending a memorial check.
H. Kleis Larsen R.I.P.
January 25, a tough ninety three year old man walked into the hospital in Grants Pass Oregon, a long way from the Montana he loved. Two days later on the 27th he succumbed to the prostate cancer that had been irritating him for five years. He will be remembered in Oregon by friends and family. He outlived most of his friends so the group of mourners will be small. However, had this memorial happened in Missoula twenty years ago, a thousand people would have gathered at Saint Paul’s Lutheran church to say good bye to a man who had significantly impacted their lives. In his apartment was found a box proving the value he had to so many people. In the box is a scrapbook with hundreds of letters from children who wanted to say goodbye upon his retirement as the principal of the Franklin Elementary School where “Mr. Larsen” was principal for thirty years. At Franklin he was always actively involved with the PTA, the athletic teams, the Boy Scouts (33 years as Assistant Scout Master Troop 3 and Cubmaster Pack 3) , and the music program. Any thing happening to the ten thousand kids who passed through his school during his tenure saw management from the principal. Previous to Franklin Mr. Larsen had taught at Willard and Central Elementary Schools and before that in Custer Montana.
Also in the box is a plaque thanking him for his several years as president of the Missoula Lions Club. Another plaque thanks him for his major contributions during six years as Regional Director of the Northern Division of the Rocky Mountain Ski Patrol and for work with the Ski Patrol at Snow Bowl for sixteen years. Saint Paul’s Lutheran Church thanks him for his years as President of the Congregation during which time significant expansion was made to the church building. The Montana Education Association and the National Education Association thank him for years of membership and work with the “Legislative Committee” to lobby for quality education in Montana. He chaired the Legislative Committee for 23 years. The Montana Officials Association thanks him for twenty years as a football and basketball official.
Kleis was a builder during the summers when school was not in session. He built his first home near his beloved UM on South Fifth Street in 1939, the year he married Rae Harrington, the wife he was to love for 65 years. This house was followed by a bigger one for his expanding family which he completed in 1946. He graduated from Western Montana College of Education and continued with a Masters Degree from UM. He, with his kids, tore down the old Prescott School and moved the bricks cross town to rebuild as an apartment. He built seven summer homes for people on the lakes along the Swan River. After retirement, he moved to Flathead Lake where he continued building. He added on to his home there and built the volunteer fire department building at Big Arm.
If you wish to do something to honor your memory of this giant of a man, don’t send flowers, put a check in an envelope and mail it to Kleis’s favorite charity. He established the Kleis Larsen Scholarship fund at UM to fund education for students who committed to stay in Montana to teach after graduation. For the last 14 years students have been recipients of Kleis’s generosity in establishing this fund with his own money.
Kleis Larsen Scholarship in Education
UM Foundation
P.O. Box 7159
Missoula, Montana, 59807
Kleis is survived by his four sons, Nick, Richard, Mark, and Eric, and by five grandchildren, and three great grandchildren. His wife, Rae died in April of 2005 in Grants Pass where the couple had moved to be near family.