Lifelong Blackfeet educator, dedicated public servant, dies
Kolby KickingWoman
ICT
Earl Barlow lived a life of service.
From the military to school districts across Montana to the Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan administrations, Barlow, Blackfeet, worked throughout his life to enhance Indian education and further Native rights.
Barlow died on July 26, 2023.
Education was at the forefront from a young age for Barlow, who was the valedictorian of his 1944 graduating class at Browning High School at the age of 16. On his 17th birthday, he enlisted in the U.S. Army and served in the Specialized Training Reserve Program.
Through the program, he was sent to the University of Idaho and Stanford University before he was ultimately honorably discharged. Barlow then moved back to Montana where he attended the University of Montana Western, graduating with honors in 1948.
It was there he met his wife, Arlene. They were married for 75 years.
She still remembers the day they met.
“My roommate and I were in the dining room. And these two young students, Earl and his roommate came over to our table and said, ‘May we sit with you?’ And we said ‘Yes, that'd be fine,’” Arlene recalled. “And that's how we met and later my husband Earl said ‘We had you folks picked out that's how we wanted to meet you.’”
They shared similar interests, Arlene said, in sports, music, in their faith and most of all their passion for education.
“We just enjoyed one another's company,” she said. “It was really kind of a storybook romance because we really enjoyed each other.”
Meeting Arlene changed Barlow’s life, his daughter Charlene Kallestad said.
As the second oldest child, some of her earliest memories of her father were him working to get his master’s degrees. Living in married student housing in Missoula, Kallestad said her parents were extraordinarily humble and made the best of every situation.
“He and my mother could make the best of anything, so we never knew there was anything amiss or lacking in that's just how we lived,” she said.
Kallestad added they both had positive attitudes and a terrific ability to be inclusive. People were always welcome in their home, family and non-family alike.
“Everybody was welcomed,” Kallestad said. “Everybody was included and my mother could make a casserole for four, go and feed 12 people.”
During his 30-year career in public education at all levels, Barlow worked as an educator, coach and superintendent across Montana.
His career began in Hot Springs, Montana as a teacher before eventually becoming superintendent of schools. In the 1960s he served as superintendent of Stevensville public schools.
While at Stevensville public schools, Barlow was selected as one of 30 educators from across the nation to do an education exchange program with what was then the USSR.
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Kallestad said he met lifelong friends and in his outgoing nature, immersed himself among Russian people, finding someone to be his “de facto interpreter.”
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“Dad could always find common ground, whether it was literature, it was really remarkable and then my mother of course, the musical; music was a huge part,” she said.
Barlow was the first Native person to serve as Supervisor of Indian Education in the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction for the State of Montana and held the position from 1970-73.
In 1972, Montana held a constitutional convention of which Barlow was instrumental in gathering tribes from around the state to testify for elements that should be included in the rewritten constitution.
Beyond the recognition of Indigenous people of the state, Barlow helped push for the rights to a clean and healthful environment.
Later, in 1979, Barlow was appointed as Director of the Office of Indian Education within the Bureau of Indian Affairs during the Carter administration. During his time he helped with restructuring the BIA education system and established the Tribally Controlled Community College Act.
He continued his work for the BIA under the Reagan administration, appointed as an area director in Minneapolis in 1982. His work focused on maintaining federal trust responsibility, economic development and strengthening tribal governments.
After years working in education and the government, Arlene said “It was time to come home and retire.”
“You wonder why Spokane? Our two oldest girls were here and they had families and we wanted to be near the children to see them go up,” Arlene said, adding that it was the right time to do so.
Although, even in retirement, Barlow was not entirely done working. Not long after moving to Spokane, he was contacted by the then-chairman of the Kalispel tribe and asked to help with economic development for the community.
When the University of Montana dedicated the Payne Family Native American Center on its campus in Missoula in 2010, a quote from Barlow was unveiled on the exterior of the building.
"When wisdom is shared, knowledge exchanged and virtue glorified, a lodge becomes a wellspring of learning for all who enter."
Barlow inspired many throughout his life and Corrina Guardipee-Hall, superintendent of Browning public schools, called him a hero of hers in education.
“He was a true Leader and a strong advocate for Education and specifically Native Education and Native Leaders. He was one of my heroes in education,” Guardipee-Hall said in an email. “He was a former Superintendent for Browning Public Schools, He was the first superintendent to hire Native Leaders, paving the way for our people, giving our student(s) role models to look up to.”
Montana governors Steve Bullock and Greg Gianforte both declared June 2 Earl J. Barlow Day in the state, the former the first to do so in 2019.
A 2021 proclamation from Gianforte states the day “celebrates his extensive, meaningful lifelong accomplishments to strengthen Indian Education in the State of Montana and throughout the United States.”
“[We] continue to recognize his lifetime of dedication toward enhancing Indian Education, Native American Rights, and for providing an endless source of knowledge and wisdom to future generations,” Gianforte wrote.
Along with working to advance Indian education, Arlene said he also took great pride in his family.
Barlow valued his family, friends, was a stickler for justice, a passion for education and a high work ethic. All things he instilled in his children.
Along with all these things, Kallestad said he always reminded her and her siblings to be generous.
“There's a difference between extravagance and generosity. Always try to be generous,” she recalled him saying. “You won't ever be able to afford to be generous, if you're extravagant.”
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