Coeur d'Alene educator Warren Bakes receives University of Idaho honorary doctorate

Warren Bakes once handled fifth- and sixth-grade lessons, the hot lunch program, bus routes and the principal’s job at Canyon Elementary School because there was no secretary. Decades later, the University of Idaho put his name on its commencement stage with an honorary doctorate, a recognition that tied one North Idaho educator’s career directly to the state’s biggest public university.

Bakes, 86, said he worked 60 years in public schools and at the university level. The University of Idaho said his career has spanned more than five decades in K-12 and higher education, the kind of record the school reserves honorary degrees for: scholarly distinction or public service that significantly benefits the university, Idaho, the nation or the world.

The recognition landed with extra weight in Coeur d’Alene and Kootenai County because Bakes spent 54 years serving students there after returning in 1969. He became an elementary principal, helped open a new school in the fall of 1975, moved into the assistant superintendent’s office in 1980 and became superintendent in 1983. For generations of families, those were not abstract administrative titles. They were the decisions that shaped school buildings, staffing, student routines and the daily culture of local classrooms.

Bakes’ path to that stage was hardly conventional. He grew up in a military family, attended 16 different schools and barely graduated from high school before earning his University of Idaho degree in 1963. After graduation, he began teaching at Canyon Elementary School in the Kellogg Joint School District, then spent five years in the Genesee School District as a teacher and principal before returning to North Idaho. That arc, from academic struggle to district leadership, gives the honorary doctorate a symbolic force beyond ceremony.

The University of Idaho’s spring 2026 commencement ceremonies ran from May 16 through May 20, with more than 1,800 students eligible to graduate and more than 600 Winter 2025 graduates invited to participate. Moscow’s ceremony was held May 16 at the P1FCU Kibbie Dome, where Bakes joined the university’s list of honorees.

His name also appears on university giving pages through the Warren and Linda Bakes Teacher Education Scholarship Endowment and the Warren Bakes CEHHS Student Support Fund, showing a relationship with the institution that reached beyond Saturday’s recognition. In Coeur d’Alene, where Bakes has remained a familiar figure for years, the doctorate served as a public reminder that the people who build school systems often leave their deepest mark long after a single administration ends.