idahoseniorindependent.com
TAKE ONE! FREE!
Educator and Outdoorsman Warren Bakes
By Jack McNeel Idaho native Warren Bakes has carved out an incredible career in Idaho education – one matched perhaps only by his love of fishing, hunting, and outdoor pursuits in general. His itinerant early education – attending 16 schools in 12 years including three schools in three different states as a first grader – resulted from his father’s being in the Navy and Warren being a navy brat. His dad’s family was well educated. As Warren relates, “They included everything from a Supreme Court Justice to lawyers and engineers. But I graduated from high school by the skin of my teeth with a 1.54 cumulative GPA.” But that GPA did not reflect his intelligence. From early in life, outdoor activities intrigued him. “I was interested in fishing and hunting by the time I was about four,” he says. “My grandfather was an Idaho native on the Payette River and he and his family had always hunted. My dad didn’t fish but I knew it was something I wanted to do. I was always fascinated with hunting, fishing, rifles, and fishing gear. By the time, I was six I was walking down the ditches in the Boise valley fishing for anything – whether it was fish, frogs, or whatever. If there was water, I was in it. If there was any place to be out looking and hiking, I was in it. That’s just how I spent my time. “I had a BB gun by the time I was five, and a .22 and driving tractors by the time I was eight. By twelve, I was going down to the Snake River south of Caldwell and Nampa to hunt jackrabbits and fish the Snake River. I’d take my lunch in a bucket and a box of .22 shorts and my little pump .22 Winchester chasing jack rabbits, fishing, and whatever kind of devilment I could get into.” A little later, a bicycle gave him the transportation to get farther away and find new haunts. “My friends and I would take a can or two of something from home and strike out on our bikes with the gun and fishing rod strapped to the handlebars.” They’d fish whatever water they found for carp, suckers, and shiners. “Whatever there was to catch, we’d get them. I would get a can and punch it with haywire for cooking. We’d take our BB gun and shoot three or four starlings and breast them out and throw them in the pot along with carrots and potatoes for dinner.” Sometimes it was a big sucker or two, which they’d bone out for the dinner pot. That early fascination for hunting, fishing, and the outdoors in general has not waned for Warren; the only difference is that now it’s hunting deer, or fishing throughout the northwest, in Alaska, and off the Pacific Coast, as well as fishing on Christmas Island. After those early years, Warren’s grades improved markedly leading to three degrees from the University of Idaho. His lengthy education career