Wayne Hawkins was born in Burbank, California, on June 8, 1944, to Mary Angeline Felton and Emery Otis Hawkins. He had one older brother, Bruce Lee Hawkins. In 1951, Mary and Emery divorced, and Mary later married John Carl Pace, with whom she had Wayne’s sister, Nancy Pace-Skinner. Wayne’s father, Emery, was a world-famous cartoonist who worked for multiple studios at the time, and Wayne visited him every other weekend in Hollywood.
Wayne graduated from Western High School in Anaheim in 1962 and attended Fullerton Community College, majoring in engineering. In 1965, he transferred to California Polytechnic University in Pomona, where he studied landscape architecture and ornamental horticulture. After graduating in 1968, he taught junior high school in Sun Valley, California, for one year before joining the Irvine Company as operations administrator.
In 1972, Wayne accepted a position with the City of Lakewood as environmental resources supervisor, responsible for managing 44,000 street trees and overseeing city streets. His mother, Mary, who had developed an interest in learning Spanish, often attended a summer language program in Mexico. During one of her summer trips, she roomed with a young woman named Stella Fallis, who was just embarking on a teaching career. Mary introduced them, and Wayne and Stella later married on June 23, 1973, in a city park in Lakewood, California. That same year, they purchased their first home in Huntington Beach, eight blocks from the Huntington Beach Pier. It was there that Wayne and Stella found a baby crow, whom they took in as a pet and named Luther Birdbath.
In 1975, Wayne, Stella, and Luther moved to Winthrop, Washington, where Wayne took a job constructing and then managing a private 160-acre organic farm for Dr. W. D. Kelley. A year later, the family relocated to Moses Lake, Washington, where Wayne became city park maintenance supervisor. In 1977, their daughter, Emily, was born. The family purchased 5 acres of bare land and, within one year, had built a house, installed utilities, constructed a barn and acquired three goats.
In 1980, the family moved to McKinleyville, California, where Wayne began work at Humboldt State University as supervisor of grounds and landscape services. Shortly after arriving, their son, Ashley, was born. Both Emily and Ashley would later attend Humboldt State — Emily graduating in 2000 with a degree in fine arts, and Ashley in 2006 with a degree in botany.
Wayne retired in 2006 after 26 years on the staff at Humboldt State. Stella retired in 2009 following a 30-year career in elementary education. In 2013, Wayne and Stella moved from McKinleyville to their dream home nestled amongst the redwoods in Arcata, California.
Throughout his career and into retirement, Wayne remained active in the community. He served on the city of Arcata Design Review Commission, participated in the Eureka Writers — a local fiction writing group — and served two terms (six years) on the board of directors for the North Coast Co-op.
Wayne and Stella lived in Humboldt County until 2022, when they moved to Lemon Grove, outside of San Diego, to be closer to family and to have better access to health care. After a long battle with atrial fibrillation and prostate cancer, Wayne passed away peacefully at home, surrounded by his family.
He is survived by his wife, Stella; daughter Emily, a Lieutenant Commander in the U.S. Navy; son Ashley, a plant pathologist with the U.S. Forest Service; sister Nancy, a retired middle school teacher; sister-in-law Jean; and his beloved nieces and nephews.
This article appears in How the Klamath Dams came down.