Roy G. Dennis, age 97
Former Bainbridge High School principal Roy G. Dennis, age 97, died April 9 in Longview.
He was born Oct. 21, 1906, to Samuel and Artie Dennis, near the town of Knoxville, Tenn. When he was age 7, his family moved to Eastern Washington, where his father worked in the logging industry and later in wheat farming.
In 1925, he graduated high school in Valleyford, and moved with his family to the brand new town of Longview, where he and his father were employed at the Long-Bell mill.
After two years, he had saved enough to enroll at the University of Washington. He graduated in 1930 with a degree in education; he spent the next five years teaching math and coaching basketball and baseball in small school districts in Montana.
In 1935, he took a teaching job at Bainbridge High School, where after one year he was made school principal, a post he held for the next six years.
It was during this time he met and fell in love with Helen Pierce, the school music teacher; they were married in Tacoma.
During World War II, he earned a place of honor with Bainbridge Island’s Japanese American community. In early 1942, when families of Japanese origin were ordered to interment camps in California, he insisted that their school records be preserved and diplomas awarded to senior students forced to moved before their graduation, thus guaranteeing their right to enter college after the war.
After leaving Bainbridge High School, he served as principal at Kelso High School and later at Kent Meridian High School, before returning to Kelso where he was to remain until retirement after 22 years as superintendent.
During his years with District 403, no annual school levy failed, and all but two of the district’s buildings were built and paid for. He knew every district employee by their first name.
In 1971, after the death of his wife, he married Onda Marie Nation. They shared 33 years of retirement raising chickens, blueberries, vegetables and a pony for the grandchildren to ride.
His commitment to the community ran long after his retirement, and he served on numerous boards of education, museum, library, business, industrial, philanthropic and port organizations.
For more than 50 years, he was a member of the Kelso Rotary Club, and was a Paul Harris Fellow, Rotary’s highest honor.
In 1970, he was chosen Cowlitz County First Citizen; in 1971 was named Administrator of the Year by the Kelso Education Association; and in 1984 was named as City of Kelso First Citizen. In 1996, he was named a charter member of Kelso High School’s Hall of Fame.
He was a lifetime member of the United Methodist Church, serving as lay leader and member of almost every church committee.
He was preceded in death by his sister, Hazel Hogerty; brother, James Clarence Dennis; his first wife, Helen Pierce Dennis; and daughter, Nancy Marie Dennis.
He is survived by his wife, Marie, of Longview; daughter, Susan Dennis Langham of Salem, Ore.; stepdaughter, Sherry Steppert of Longview; son Paul Dennis of Walla Walla; sister Agnes Staggs of Longview; 12 grandchildren and 10 great-grandchildren.
Memorials can be made to the Salvation Army, PO Box 1218, Longview, WA 98632; the Roy G. Dennis Scholarship c/o the Kelso Public School Foundation, PO Box 344, Kelso, WA 98626 or to the Kelso United Methodist Church, 206 Cowlitz Way, Kelso, WA 98626.
