Warn Leaving Board ‘Oldest Living Member’ Leaves School Board After 28 Years

John Warn made a last-minute decision to run for the Spokane School Board 28 years ago.

Tuesday he announced he is stepping down.

Warn, 67, the longest serving board member in the school district’s history, once joked he was “the oldest living member of the school board.”

He will quit the board Dec. 31 with two years left on his six-year term.

The board will have 90 days to appoint a replacement. At least two people who ran for a board seat last fall, attorney Rocco Treppiedi and preacher Lonny Bingle, say they may be interested in applying.

The board may wait to interview applicants until after the Feb. 6 levy election, said board President Terrie Beaudreau.

A real estate salesman and South Hill resident, Warn was elected six times and worked with four superintendents.

His tenure included a bitter 24-day teachers strike in 1979 and two failed recall efforts - one in 1972 that targeted the full board and the other in 1979 that focused on three of his fellow board members.

The 1980s and 1990s saw less public controversy, but no less complex issues as the district grew and became more urban and poor.

“You could say I’m getting worn out,” said Warn. “And you can spell that any way you want: W-o-r-n or W-a-r-n.

“I don’t have the enthusiasm I used to have. It’s not fair to the citizens to carry on when I’m not giving it my all.”

Other board members tried to sway Warn to delay his resignation until after the levy election, but he resisted, he said.

Warn and his wife, Agnes, plan a two-month trip to Mexico and California beginning next month. Warn would miss four board meetings, which he did not want to do, he said.

Notorious for his wit, Warn once voted “no” on an innocuous issue to tease critics who accused the board of being a rubber stamp for district administrators’ ideas.

“I’ve always called him the hit-and-run jokester,” Beaudreau said. “He would call me, tell me a joke and say, ‘Bye.’ If you needed cheering up he was great at that.”

He abhorred political correctness. He once made a motion to change the word “chair” to “chairman” in the bylaws of the district’s Affirmative Action Council.

“Chair,” he said, “is the thing I’m sitting in.”

The motion died for lack of a second.

In 1967, he decided to file for election after reading a newspaper article about a board opening.

Beaudreau, former board member Carol Wendle and Superintendent Gary Livingston praised Warn’s historical perspective.

“He’s been the sage of the board,” Livingston said.

Spokane attorney Mike Ormsby, who at age 18 in 1975 was the board’s youngest member, often battled with Warn.

“While he didn’t agree with my opinion, he respected it,” Ormsby said. “He treated me as an equal.”

Ormsby, like others, spoke with awe of Warn’s 28-year tenure.

“I only served on the board eight years and I have to admit I was tired. John kept his position for 28 years and during that time remembered the various interests in the community, but still remembered kids are first. My hat’s off to him.”

, DataTimes