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Today's Featured Biography
Warren Cook
Springs and Summers remembered, and looking forward to the 50th with you all.
After Spring Break '74 in California, visiting Julie Stewart, Pullman seemed a little muffled. Instead of my daydream motorcycle trip down the west coast, I left town after graduation in an old truck.
With coincidental adventurer Jeff Hindman, took seasonal work (and unsupervised misbehavior) in Rocky Mtn Nat'l Park. When we returned in the Fall, I met for the first time Janet Calvert PHS 71, who was working at the Youth Center in City Hall.
Janet and I married in 1977 in the Reaney Park Gazebo, as a light snow fell on the "New Pool". The Bryan Hall Carillon played "It Might As Well be Spring". (Janet's Dad had a connection)
Janet worked at the Grange Supply and Pullman Travel. Brother in law Don Calvert PHS '73 had been a fellow scout years before.
Summer 1984 celebrated our first son Champ and marked my first summer not managing the Chevron at Main and Paradise where I had worked since 1976.
My 38 yr career in energy was underway in the burgeoning industry of residential efficiency upgrades provided through the utility company. with experience as a salesperson of a retrofit company, and then as a contractor, I worked with utilities and organizations in the Northwest. I received my building science education from USDOE via the Residential Conservation Service, and would later teach those principles and practices to utility representatives, construction industry, builders and technical college students as an adjunct instructor.
Energy efficiency in the Northwest led the nation by recognizing efficiency as precious as our hydropower, fuel and nuclear resources.
By 1987, we had moved to Spokane to be at the headquarters of employer Washington Water Power. During part of my time there, I reported to another former Troop 444 scout, Louis Szablya.
In late summer, our second son, Guy was born.
In the Spring of 1990, the energy industry drew our family to work based in Portland OR with travel throughout the Bonneville Power Administration and Pacific Power regions. We settled in Vancouver WA.
I returned to Boy Scouts as a leader, with the goal of making sure the dudes learned the skills to enjoy the outdoors in all weathers and the values of teamwork and cooperation.
Summers once again marked by summer camp, this time dads & sons and friends.
In late summer 2002, as our oldest son began college at Pacific University in Oregon, we began a cancer health ordeal that would take Janet in the Summer of 2004.
We spent the last months of her too-short 49 earthly years behaving like retired folks. No work, careful diet, lots of Dr. appointments and going out to lunch while doing errands.
There is a memorial stone in Cougar Plaza for Janet Calvert Cook.
Summers 2004-07 I took a sabbatical from energy work and basically took jobs that were physically demanding, difficult to learn and required me to be at certain places at certain times. All part of grief process and getting ready for the Next Chapter.
After 27 years married, I was not surprised to find out I was Not Good at being without a partner and best friend.
I met Meryl McKean in 2005 and she soon joined our family in Vancouver while commuting to Federal Way WA. Her career in health care led to a teaching position at a technical college in Beaverton OR.
After a Summer cross country road trip with my brother, I returned to the energy efficiency industry in 2007.
With Meryl's grown children, we became a family of four and my sons gained a new sister Ty and a big brother Jordan. Jordan passed away in 2022.
In the Summer of 2013, we sold our Vancouver home (goodbye, off season reflecting pond/good days swimming pool) and moved to Salem OR. Meryl got a local teaching position at Oregon Institute of Technology. We bought a 1922 Craftsman Bungalow near downtown. It is the style of home we had both envisoned as our ideal home, and evokes the College Hill homes I thought I'd be living in retirement.
I went to work for the Oregon Department of Energy and joined the kinds of folks that had inspired me to get into this field back in 1983. I managed a group of super smart, mission driven and well-grounded professionals and together we navigated the policies, politics and projects related energy topics. My goal was to help guide, shape and mentor until my retirement, so basically just tell them what I"d learned and how I thought, then move on and let the next folks run their show.
We retired in 2021 and this new way to be is a gift from the universe (and all those social security and pension contributions).
Meryl has known me as energy maven,truck driver, insurance inspector,tech support call center worker,automotive press car prep and delivery driver, and together we were lucky to run a non-profit charity funded bicycle shop in downtown Vancouver.
We have been together "our whole lives" - time is a matter of what portion are you talking about: past, present, future or what comes next.
We are all at an age where we will have losses of loved ones - "happens to everybody" now is a reminder we should make the most of what we have earned, and what we have been given. We can cherish old and new relationships and continue to marvel at the world.
I await the 50th PHS reunion, and all the heart feels that go along with a trip to hometown.
But if you try sometimes, you just might find
You just might find that you,
You get what you need
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