The College of Education’s mission is all about the ripple effect — sending graduates into the world to change lives for the better. Sometimes those ripples becomes waves that shape the landscape.

John Armenia is being remembered for the impact he left on the Washington state education system.   John, who died on August 28 and will be honored at a Bellevue memorial service on Thursday, was well into his career as a teacher and administrator when he earned an education doctoral degree from WSU in 1978. Even after his retirement as director of the City University of Seattle’s Educational Leadership Program in 2008, he was still going strong. He finished a five-year stint as president of the Washington State Chapter of Phi Delta Kappa, a professional association for educators, in 2009.  In May of this year, he was elected to PDK International’s board of directors.

Amy Kemp, PDK International’s director of leadership services, sent this note to our Professor Emeritus Don Orlich:

“John was such a visionary within PDK. Of his many contributions, the one that many would speak to was his total dedication to revitalizing the PDK chapters in Washington by creating PDK’s first state chapter. He not only created that chapter, but he led it, actually nurtured it through its formative years, and then when finally comfortable, handed  it off to other leaders. This is the mark of great leadership, to have a vision, to make a commitment, and then establish the means for that vision to continue well into the future.”