Longtime TPS teacher coached at DeVilbiss

2/27/2010

Warren B. "Doc" Goode, 89, a longtime teacher, coach, and administrator in the Toledo Public Schools, died Wednesday in his Avon Park, Fla., home.

He had congestive heart failure and dementia, his daughter, Suzy, said. He and his wife, Irene, lived for many years on Barrow Street in West Toledo and moved to Florida in 1990.

He ran unsuccessfully in 1980 as Republican candidate for Lucas County commissioner against then-Democratic incumbent James Holzemer. In 1981, he ran for Toledo City Council, surviving the primary, but not the general election.

Mr. Goode retired in 1975 after three years as principal of Nathan Hale School. He was principal the previous three years of Point Place Junior High School, and was an assistant principal of Jones Junior High School a year before that.

He was recruited to the Toledo system in 1952 by Hilton Murphy, then DeVilbiss High School athletic director. The men knew each other from Zanesville, Ohio, where both taught and coached.

Mr. Goode taught history at DeVilbiss and was junior varsity and an assistant varsity coach in several sports. He was head bowling coach and, for a time, head baseball coach.

He was athletic director at DeVilbiss from 1962-68 and continued teaching there.

"I think he loved kids …the energy the kids had and the desire they had for their futures," said his daughter, a retired Colorado sixth-grade teacher. "He felt that if he could help shape that future and head them in the right direction, he wanted to be part of it."

He was a former president of the Toledo High School Athletic Directors Association and of the Northwestern Ohio Education Association, an administrators group. In 2001, Mr. Goode was inducted into the DeVilbiss Hall of Fame.

Earlier, besides Zanesville, he taught in rural Greene and Ross counties.

In retirement, he liked to golf and fish and follow the stock market. He liked spontaneity. He was as apt to agree to a spur-of-the-moment 10 p.m. ice cream run as he was to suggest giving everyone on the street a gift.

"He was fun-loving," his daughter said. "He wanted to encourage people to explore the limit."

He was born Sept. 5, 1920, in Adelphi, Ohio, the son of Margaret and Herbert Goode. He received his nickname because he often accompanied his maternal grandfather, Dr. William Barton, on house calls. Still, on his mother's side, he came from a line of teachers dating to the 1850s.

He ultimately received a bachelor's degree from what was then Wilmington College. He interrupted his studies to enlist in the Marine Corps during World War II. He was a drill instructor and led a unit to guard the president. He became a Marine Corps instructor at Quantico, Va., and was part of U.S. efforts at war's end in China.

He received a master's degree from West Virginia University.

Surviving are his wife, Irene, whom he married July 22, 1944; daughter, Carolyn "Suzy" Goode McKee, and two grandchildren.

At Mr. Goode's request, there will be no visitation or services. Arrangements are by the Stephenson-Nelson Funeral Home, Sebring, Fla.

The family suggests tributes to the Good Shepherd Hospice, Sebring, Fla.