LaVaughn Pearl Poston died on January 23, 2022, in Conroe, Texas, after a five year battle with Alzheimer's disease.   She was born on March 31, 1933, in Guthrie, Oklahoma to Merty Beames and James Poston.  She lived in Oklahoma until her ninth birthday when she moved to California with her family.  She graduated from Leuzinger High School in Lawndale, California, in 1950.  She married her high school sweetheart, Leonard Wayne Kirk, on August 6, 1950, and they had a son, Jimme,  and daughter,  Karen.  The couple divorced in 1954.  LaVaughn worked as a secretary at Northrop, an aerospace company in El Segundo, where she met her second husband, Joseph Klompar.   Following his death, she married her third husband, William Culpepper in March, 1975.

LaVaughn developed an interest in oil painting and she took lessons for five years.  She pursued art as a hobby for several years until 1976 when she purchased a motor home and began traveling (by herself) to weekend art shows to sell her artwork.   In 1986 she moved from Escondido to downtown San Diego and she took up bridge, joining the San Diego unit of the American Contract Bridge League .  She attained the rank of Lifemaster in 1998.  LaVaughn had a passion for travel and between 1995 and 2018 she made 35 trips to destinations around the world.  Between trips she volunteered at several San Diego nonprofits, feeding the homeless at St. Vincent de Paul, walking dogs for the animal shelter, giving walking tours downtown and working for the San Diego Police Department.  She maintained a gym membership until she was 75 and thereafter continued to get her daily exercise walking all over the city.  LaVaughn moved to Texas in 2018 to be near family.

She is preceded in death by her son, Jimme Kirk, parents, Merty Beames Poston and James Poston, and her second husband Joseph Klompar.

She is survived by her daughter Karen Parris, son-in-law Cliff Parris; granddaughter Melissa Mittelhauser (and her husband Don); grandson Brian Parris (and his fiancé' Sara) and great granddaughters Anna and Alina Tarasiewicz.

Memorial donations may be made to the Alzheimer's Association .