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Colin MacLachlan ’52

A picture of Colin MacLachlan

Colin MacLachlan ’52, July 30, 2010, in Cockeysville, Maryland, from liver failure related to Parkinson's disease. Colin spent two years at Hamilton College before transferring to Reed. While at Reed, he took leads in dramatic productions, was on the staff of the Quest, and “stopped an occasional grounder” on the baseball diamond. After earning a BA in general literature, he was drafted into the army. Afterwards he studied at Johns Hopkins and worked at WMAR-TV in Baltimore, Maryland, before becoming a reporter for the Baltimore Evening Sun. He was given the key to the city of Baltimore in 1958 for outstanding political reporting. Colin also worked as news editor for the Long Islander, a newspaper owned and edited by his father. For the next 20 years, he was a public relations executive in New York City, working in firms that serviced electric and gas utility companies, accounting firms, and the motion picture industry. He retired to Naples, Florida, from where, he wrote, he managed to escape periodically for golf and fishing throughout the world. Colin was a member of the New York Board of Trade, director of the American Scottish Foundation, and board member of the Naples Habitat for Humanity. He also enjoyed photography. He married Helen D. Heaton ’54; they had two sons and a daughter—Claudia MacLachlan ’75—and a granddaughter. He was also married to Mary Lehman. Claudia, who informed the college of her father's death, wrote: “I will miss his humor, wit, and New Deal politics. We were always wildly outraged by the same political stunts, and he was a Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow fan to the end.” Colin contributed generously to Reed throughout his life and created the MacLachlan Family Scholarship.

Appeared in Reed magazine: December 2010

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