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Wendell says hello — and leaves a lesson

| August 4, 2021 1:00 AM

He sat in his usual place at the Applebee’s across from the mall, the same place he sat for many a working lunch back when he was Coeur d’Alene School District’s chief operations officer.

Last weekend Wendell Wardell came back to say hello — and, perhaps, goodbye.

For those of you who have moved here since 2014, Wardell was District 271’s COO for just 26 months. But the decorated Vietnam combat veteran who played tackle on the Washington State University offensive line — hell, at 6-foot-6, Wendell’s big enough to darn near man the O-line single-handedly — represents something more than a public servant who left things better than he found them.

Flashback: In those 26 months on the job, Wardell helped move the district administrative offices from an almost inaccessible semi-slum to the modern facility at Ironwood and Northwest Boulevard.

His financial oversight helped dramatically upgrade electronic security at district schools.

He helped build a partnership with Tesh, Inc., a local nonprofit that trains people with disabilities, to provide custodial services to the high schools. That saved the district money and gave Tesh some desperately needed financial support while providing valuable experience and opportunity to Tesh clients.

With former Superintendent Hazel Bauman, Wardell led a successful bond sale that benefitted the district financially while securing a lower rate for taxpayers.

He oversaw renovations of Canfield, Borah, Bryan and Sorensen using bond funds at or below budget. By the time Wardell left office, reconstruction of Winton Elementary was underway and on budget.

In his previous life, Wardell built a company that boasted $1.4 billion in sales and was profitable enough to reward all employees with bonuses every year for 29 years. He cut his school administration teeth as a member of the Billings School District board of trustees. He worked closely with the district’s finance department, which helped prepare him for the CDA job.

Today, Wendell and his bride, Kay, call North Carolina home, where they’re close to a daughter and grandkids. But over a meal at Applebee’s last Friday, Wendell talked about how much he misses North Idaho. It’s a refrain we hear constantly: Locals who move away to be near family, but whose hearts still ache for what they had here — which, generally speaking, was a very good life.

In his late 70s, Wendell Wardell also is in a health battle that, unlike the North Vietnamese or a UW offensive lineman or a stubborn school budget, he will not ultimately defeat. His brief return over the otherwise hot and smoky weekend was a poignant reminder that for each of us, here and now matters. We must make the most of it.