Former Emerald Editor-in-chief Michael Kleckner, now legally referred to as Sioen Roux, passed away Tuesday morning in San Francisco from a heart attack, his good friend and ex-wife Sarah Chylek said. He was 43.
Roux served as the Emerald’s editor from 2002 to 2003.
At the time of his death, Roux was living near San Francisco at Tassajara Zen Mountain Center, where he was a Buddhist monk. On Tuesday, he was about to ring a bell for morning prayer when he died suddenly of a heart attack.
Roux was an only child who grew up in Eugene. His family was not religious, but had an appreciation for all people, Chylek said.
“He was raised in a very open, loving environment and not a specific religion at all, just a general appreciation for diversity of thought and openness.” Chylek said.
Roux was outspoken, politically active, a brilliant writer and excellent debater while in college, she said. He came into his position as Editor-in-chief with a desire to “tell relevant, intriguing stories about the events and actions in the campus community.”
Kleckner also worked for various restaurants in Lane County, and took on internships at The Oregonian in Portland, the Deseret News in Salt Lake City, Utah, and the University of Oregon School of Journalism and Communication’s Flux magazine. He graduated with a degree in journalism.
Throughout his life, Roux was interested in multiple belief systems, but was Buddhist at the time of his passing.
After graduating from South Eugene High School in 1989, he remained in Eugene for a year until Chylek graduated the next year. The two then moved to San Francisco and remained there for over three years.
“We just wanted to try something new,” Chylek said. “He was adventurous.”
Though Roux was openly gay, the couple then moved back to Eugene in 1993 and were married at WOW Hall. Their marriage was never traditional or romantic and she always knew about his sexual orientation, but marriage had benefits for both of them, Chylek said.
“There seemed to be a lot of benefits to being married,” Chylek said. “We were basically living as a married couple; we just weren’t a sexual relationship. We really established a strong kinship, like a brother-sister relationship. We were unique and more soulmate-y than anything else I had experienced.”
In addition, the two saw it as a way to stick it to the government, Chylek said. At the time, gay marriage was illegal in all of the United States.
“We didn’t really have a lot of respect for what marriage meant,” she said. “We knew it was just a piece of paper.”
When in Eugene, they were both heavily involved with WOW Hall and the Oregon Country Fair. Both Sioen and Chylek were beer garden managers at the hall and helped with her parents’ falafel booth at the country fair.
The two moved back and forth between Eugene and San Francisco. Sometimes they moved together and other times they didn’t.
He later began teaching English abroad in places like Thailand and Saudi Arabia while also doing missionary work on and off for about five years.
In the years leading up to his death, he kept a blog titled “Rebirth of Wonder.” It contains musings about his life, snippets of humor (a poem titled “Best Fucking Friends”) and notes on his spiritual journey, including his move to the monastery.
According to a post he wrote in July 2014, Roux was HIV positive.
Chylek said that despite the disease, Roux was able to live life the way he wanted to live it.
“We had a great life. We had a whole lot of fun together,” Chylek said.