CHS Distinguished Alumni
Darlene Houck MacPherson
Class of 1956
Darlene Houck MacPherson was born on a Kingfisher County farm southwest of Crescent, Oklahoma. Her parents were Austin and Alice Houck. She was next to the youngest of seven children.
She attended Oak Valley Schools through the 3rd grade and when that school was closed, transferred to Crescent Schools. She graduated as valedictorian of the 1956 Crescent High School Class then attended Central State College for two years and accepted a clerical position at John A. Brown Department Store in Oklahoma City. In early 1960, she took the Civil Service Examination and was offered a clerical position with the Navy Department in Washington, D.C.
Her first position was a GS-3 Clerk Typist in the Bureau of Naval Weapons. The organization was going through a reduction in force. After her notice, she accepted a position in the Navy Special Projects Office (later known as the Strategic Systems Programs). That office is responsible for complete development, acquisition and continuing support of the POLARIS, POSEIDON, TRIDENT I and TRIDENT II Fleet Ballistic Missiles and ship-installed weapon system equipment.
From May 1960 until May 1970, she held various clerical and secretarial positions. At that time, she entered the professional field of Budget Analyst; the first position was in a technical branch assisting in the preparation of budget submissions and procurement documents. Later, she was on the Technical Director's staff and involved in the preparation of Research and Development budgets for the TRIDENTI and TRIDENT II Missiles. Her final positions were in the Resources Branch that was responsible for budget justification of the complete development, acquisition and support of the missiles and ship-installed weapon system equipment. The budget at that time was $3 billion per year. She was directly responsible for the preparation of several external reports to the Secretary of the Defense and Congress. Darlene retired in September 1993 as a GM-14 Program Analyst.
Her next career as a volunteer at Mount Vernon, the home of George Washington, started in the fall of 1993. She planned to volunteer 1 or 2 days a week, but by the spring of 1994, became the Volunteer Projects Coordinator. Mount Vernon has a growing volunteer force and as they added volunteers, they added special events in the daytime, evenings and weekends. She was responsible for recruiting and scheduling volunteers for those events. In just 2004, she reduced her efforts in coordinating large mailing and ended her volunteer activity in December of 2007, moving to Williamsburg. She had accumulated 13,000 volunteer hours.
She married Ed Fournier in October 1973; he worked for the same organization. Their marriage ended with his sudden death in 1989. In February 2008, she married Bill MacPherson, a retired Navy Captain. Bill was with the Strategic Systems Programs from 1975 until he retired in 1992. With this marriage, she inherited 4 children, 5 grandchildren and 13 great-grandchildren. Bill died in August 2011. In June 2016, she moved from their house to Patriots Colony at Williamsburg, a continuing care facility for retired military and federal service personnel. She is very active with a walking group and has many friends in the Williamsburg area.
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