“Leadership,” Marilou Joyner once said, “is not about popularity or having power. It’s about wanting to find a way to do what is right and then working to make it happen.”

For more than four decades, she did just that. As an educator and businessperson, as a champion of reading and literacy, Joyner not only led. She also broke ground. She inspired. Included in her long, distinguished resume was a more than four-year term on the Kansas City Public Library’s board of trustees, a time – from 2014 to early 2019 – that saw the Library recognized locally, regionally, and nationally for its excellence and importance to its community.

She “worked tirelessly as an advocate for the Library within the community while also advocating for the community as a representative on the board,” her fellow trustees said in a warm proclamation after her term concluded.

Sadly, Joyner died unexpectedly Saturday, June 3, 2023, ending a lifetime of service to community, region, and state. She was 74.

“Throughout her life, Marilou was a constant source of support and encouragement for people she met along the way to continue to go to school or go back to school, take a leap of faith on a business, work on a new policy or initiative, and stand up for others in a community or board meeting,” said Carrie Coogan, who worked closely with Joyner as the Library’s deputy director for public affairs and community engagement.

“She believed that through communication, kindness, and collaboration, anything could be accomplished. She was a true, strong, compassionate leader in our community and will be deeply, deeply missed.”

A native of Council Bluffs, Iowa, Joyner chose to attend college at Northwest Missouri State University in Maryville and, after earning a degree in education in 1975, established a presence that eventually radiated across her adopted state. She worked as a speech therapist, school counselor, elementary and middle school principal, and superintendent in various school districts in the area, then joined the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education. There, she served eight years as an assistant commissioner.

She spent four subsequent years as executive director of the Kansas City Higher Education Partnership, advising school districts on accreditation, and three years as president of the Blackwell Education Support Team, a Kansas City consulting firm. For more than 23 years, Joyner owned Cameron Group Care, Inc., which operates an intermediate care facility for developmentally disabled adults and offers other residential and vocational resources and services.

Along the way, she earned master’s and education specialist degrees from Northwest Missouri State and a doctorate in education administration from the University of Kansas. She added a master's in business administration from Bellevue (Nebraska) University.

She extended her skills and passion to deep involvement in community. Joyner was a member and past president of the board of Literacy Kansas City and served on the Northwest Missouri State University Foundation board and the university’s Board of Regents, chairing the latter in 2019-20.

During her tenure on KCPL’s board of trustees, the Library was selected for the Humanities Award for Exemplary Community Achievement from the Missouri Humanities Council and named a 5-Star library by Library Journal for four consecutive years.

Last year, the Marilou Joyner Women in Leadership Scholarship was endowed in her honor at Northwest Missouri State “as a tribute to the leadership she exhibited as a woman in education, business and service roles traditionally held by males.” It was first awarded in fall 2022.

“Marilou spent her professional life pushing to make sure women had a seat at the table,” the Library’s Coogan said. “Whether in her extensive leadership role as an educator, entrepreneur, and business owner or as a dedicated and engaged board member of many organizations, she always believed when women and people of color are supported, championed, and elevated to decision-making and leadership positions, everyone will benefit.”

She lent a lifetime of substance to the words.