Kathy Coleman

After a long life filled with music, love, and joy, Kathy Coleman entered the welcoming embrace of her heavenly Father on February 3, 2016.  From her earliest days in Kansas City, Missouri to the end of her life in Lake Charles, she shared her love of music and song everywhere she went.

Kathy graduated from St. Charles Academy in Lake Charles in 1951 and enrolled as a Secretarial Science major at McNeese. Shortly after graduating, however, it wasn’t long before she felt called to pursue a different career, so she enrolled again at MSU to receive a B.A. in Elementary Education—a career that was a perfect fit for her inter-personal and musical skills.  She taught for many years at both St. Margaret and Immaculate Conception elementary schools, earning a Teacher of the Year award in Calcasieu Parish and universally being named “Favorite Teacher Ever” by her many fifth grade students.  While at ICS, she formed the “Sounds of Music,” a girls’ chorus of over 100 students and taught guitar lessons to students after school. While in Lake Charles, she was a faithful member of the Immaculate Conception church choir, the Liberty Belles, and the McNeese Messiah chorus.

After the assassination of Bobby Kennedy, Kathy once again felt called to the next great chapter of her life.  In Kennedy’s memory, she volunteered in Gallup, New Mexico, to work among the Native Americans of the Navaho reservation.  What was to be a summer ministry evolved into forty-one years in Gallup, serving as a teacher, CCD instructor, music minister, retreat team member, and leader of three Scripture study groups.  She once again organized a chorus-- the Joy Group--at Sacred Heart Catholic School; her Christmas productions were a highlight of each school year.

Her love of children, and their natural affection for her, enabled her to touch the lives of hundreds of young people.  Serving as a teacher in Iowa, Westlake, and Lake Charles in summer Bible programs—always with her beloved guitar as companion—provided her with a ministry that lasted for four decades.  She loved nothing better than spreading the message of God’s love, and she did so in her teaching and in the dozens of musical compositions she wrote for both adults and children.

Kathy was preceded in death by her parents, L. Michael (Bud) Coleman and Kathryn Graham Coleman.  Her sisters and brothers-in-law, Sue and Jack Brooks and Ann and John Romero, along with Kathy’s many nieces and nephews, are celebrating the gift that Kathy was to them and to her multitude of friends both in Lake Charles and in Gallup.  From her new and heavenly home, she extends to them the same wish that she said so often: “My message to you is peace, joy, and love.”

A Mass of Christian Burial will be celebrated on Saturday, February 6 at 10:00 a.m. at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception. Rev. Aubrey Guilbeau will be the principal celebrant. Visitation will be on Friday, February 5 from 4:00 to 8:00 p.m. at Johnson Funeral Home, with a prayer service at 6:00 p.m. conducted by Sr. Jeannette Touchet. Entombment will be at a later date at Consolata Cemetery.

The family would like to express their heartfelt thanks to Dr. Arthur Primeaux and Dr. Mohammad Kahn as well as the nurses and staff of Christus Hospice, especially Anita, Candice, Dawn, Keissa and caretakers Emma and Carolyn for their compassionate and loving care to Kathy during her final days.

In lieu of flowers, friends may send a donation in Kathy’s memory to her favorite charity, the Maryknoll Contemplative Community, P.O. Box 311, Maryknoll, N.Y. 10545-0311.