Dorothy Mary Wilson Butler died on December 10, 2015, at the Neighborhoods at Brookview, in Brookings, South Dakota, after a long illness. Mass of Christian Burial will be celebrated at 11:00 A.M. on Wednesday, December 30, 2015, at St. Thomas More Catholic Parish. Visitations will be a half hour prior to Mass. Eidsness Funeral Home is handling the arrangements.

Dorothy was born on October 27, 1927, in Shreveport, Louisiana. She graduated high school as the valedictorian of her class at Holy Rosary Academy in Lafayette, Louisiana. She began college at age 16 at the University of Southern California, ultimately earning her B.A. in History and a Masters in Education from South Dakota State University and a Doctorate in Educational Administration from the University of Wyoming.

Dorothy was married for 65 years to Lt. Colonel Eugene T. Butler, Jr., (USAF Retired) who died in 2013 She was a military wife until Eugene retired from the Air Force and they moved to Brookings, SD in 1970.

A lifelong educator, Dorothy taught elementary school, high school, and adult education and served as a Vice Principal of a boys' high school at schools in Atwater, California; at Ellsworth Air Force Base and Lower Brule in South Dakota; and in Los Angeles, California. Dorothy worked as a consultant for the South Dakota Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, for a private educational consulting firm and an international graduate school of education in Colorado, and was Director of Educational Programs for Education Teaching Aids located in Chicago. Dorothy conducted workshops for teachers and school administrators in forty-nine of the fifty states (excluding Alaska), in Canada, and in the Netherlands . Dorothy is the founder of Learning Options, Inc., a hands on learning experience, which she operated until 2004.

Dorothy served as a member of the South Dakota Human Rights Commission and of the South Dakota Advisory Committee to the United States Commission on Civil Rights. Dorothy received the first Brookings Human Rights Award which is named after Dorothy and her late husband Eugene. She was active in the civil rights movement and gave public presentations about civil and human rights throughout her adult life.

Dorothy was a published song writer of the song "Digital Duel" by Phil Baker, Behringer, and Butler.

Dorothy is survived by two children and their spouses Eugene III & Fedora Butler and Diane Butler & Collins Byrd, Jr.; three grandchildren, Eugene IV, Yvette, and Daryl; nieces and nephews; and grandnieces and grandnephews.

She was preceded in death by her husband, her parents, her three sisters, three nieces, and a nephew.