Former TNT columnist and Tacoma Schools spokesman Dan Voelpel dies from cancer at 62
Dan Voelpel, a longtime reporter and columnist for The News Tribune and most recently the communications director for Tacoma Public Schools, died Wednesday evening, his family announced.
Voelpel, 62, died from glioblastoma, a form of brain cancer, at Tacoma General Hospital.
From Auburn to Tacoma
Voelpel was born Dec. 31, 1960 in Auburn to Norm and Ona Voelpel and grew up there. After graduating from Pacific Lutheran University with a journalism degree in 1983, he married his first wife, Becky. The couple had two children, Sarah Kvamme and Jacob Voelpel, before divorcing.
In 1983, Voelpel joined The News Tribune as a cub reporter. His beats included crime, city and county governments and the military.
In 1991, he left the newspaper to work for the City of Tacoma as its community relations manager. It was there that he met his second wife, Gwen. The couple married in 2005.
Voelpel rejoined The News Tribune in 2003 as the newspaper’s business columnist.
“He’s one of those people who had a love for Tacoma,” said former TNT executive editor and publisher David Zeeck. “To be a columnist, to write at that depth requires kind of an extraordinary investment.”
Zeeck recalled Voelpel’s choice of commuter vehicle: a scooter.
“He wanted to be on that scooter, get out and see people ... actually have conversations with people when you’re stopped at an intersection which you really can’t do much in a car,” Zeeck said.
Voepel used his column to push for community projects. Some, like a gondola that would take people to the waterfront, didn’t gain traction. Others, like campaigning for McMenamins to come to Tacoma, were successful.
In 2009, Voelpel left The News Tribune for the last time to become the economic development director for the city of Puyallup. Less than a year later he took a new job as head of communications for Tacoma Public Schools.
On Thursday, superintendent Josh Garcia said Voelpel served the district with “loyalty, dedication and integrity.”
“Dan’s commitment to this community, the TPS team and the students and families of Tacoma were evident in every project he took on,” Garcia said. “While his presence will certainly be missed, his legacy will remain with us for a lifetime.”
Diagnosis
Dan and Gwen Voelpel were avid backpackers and campers and enjoyed traveling, particularly on Voelpel’s Harley-Davidson.
“We would even go motorcycle camping,” Gwen said Thursday. “Pack up the motorcycle with ridiculous amounts. We looked like the Beverly Hillbillies on a Harley.”
Voelpel loved old movies, and Gwen made him a fan of country music.
“His favorite song to do at karaoke during conferences was Garth Brooks’ ‘Friends in Low Places’,” she said.
Voelpel took a medical leave from the school district in early 2022. After surgery confirmed a cancer diagnosis in spring, he continued to do the things he loved, Gwen said. That included traveling. The couple visited Hawaii and Lake Tahoe after his diagnosis.
He recently stopped treatment when he concluded it would no longer help him, Gwen said.
When it became time for him to receive palliative care, the couple were faced with roadblocks, Gwen said. He still had insurance, but it would not cover a facility at the level of need he required.
“He was in limbo for so long, not able to be comfortable, and he kept falling through cracks in health insurance,” Gwen said. “I thought I finally found one yesterday, and then he passed.”
Legacy
Voelpel donated his time to Child Care Aware, the American Leadership Forum and the American Cancer Society’s Relay for Life.
If Voelpel was proud of one professional achievement, it was influencing Portland’s McMenamin brothers to convert the former Elks Temple in Tacoma into one of their signature establishments, Gwen said.
“He just believed in their product so much,” Gwen said. “He loved their philosophy, the reuse of historic buildings. And to him, I think that would be his legacy and what he would, besides his children, want people to remember most.”
Voelpel recounted the story in a 2018 column for South Sound Business.
“The Elks Temple project ... will lift the collective community psyche and inject new energy into this city unlike anything in recent memory,” he wrote.
Daughter Sarah said Thursday she’ll miss her father’s sense of humor, quick wit, dad jokes and the puns they would trade with each other.
“That was our road trip go-to,” she said. “We would tell them back and forth. Dad always had more puns than we did.”
She’ll also miss his gift for story telling.
“He would have written his own obit so perfectly and know what to say to help us grieve and celebrate and give us a little uplift,” she said.
In addition to Gwen and his children, he is survived by his father, his step-children Cassandra and Jennifer Kopetzky, grandchildren Philemon and Millie and his brothers Scott and Ron Voelpel.
Voelpel eschewed funerals, including his own, Gwen said. In lieu of services, the family asks donations be made to Relay For Life.
This story was originally published January 6, 2023 at 5:00 AM.
