Irv Blumenfeld retires from the UW, and this time he’s serious

Irv Blumenfeld

Add the 26 years he spent as the UW’s public information officer with the 24 he’s just completed as the volunteer editor of the UW Retiree Report. Factor in his four years as a UW undergraduate (class of 1930). Irv Blumenfeld has spent a lot of the 20th Century on campus.

His paid career included the turbulent sixties. Ever laconic, he remembers “a lot of rioting, and of course I was in charge of working with the news media. So it kept me pretty busy.”

“He was the guy who kept the newspapers at bay,” said Neal Lessenger, the UW’s retiring real estate officer.

Julie Emery, who covered higher education for the Seattle Times for more than 20 years, credits Blumenfeld with making “campus figures and issues come alive” during the period of campus unrest and university expansion.

“In all the dealings I had with him, he was totally unflappable,” said Georg N. Meyers, former sports editor for The Seattle Times.

Blumenfeld praises his boss, former President Charles Odegaard, now a fellow resident at Seattle’s Horizon House, for the UW’s smooth trip through the 1960s. “He was an outstanding, brilliant man, and I think the university survived the rough times in the 60s because of how he handled it all.”

A native of Central Seattle, Blumenfeld followed his two older siblings to the UW—it was “close and cheap,” he said. After studying economics and journalism, Blumenfeld served a briefly as a reporter for the Seattle Post Intelligencer and Associated Press and as assistant editor of the Oak Harbor News. He then bought weekly newspapers in Sumas and Granite Falls and served as their editor and publisher.

World War II intervened, and Blumenfeld served as a staff officer to the Fifth Army Headquarters in Italy. A bronze star, a medal for merit and four battle stars later, he mustered out as a captain. He remained active in the Army Reserves, eventually attaining the rank of lieutenant colonel.

Blumenfeld came to the UW in 1948 after running a public relations agency and serving as a part-time correspondent for Time, Life, and several other publications. Then he settled into the routine that kept him busy for the next quarter century. The year after his retirement in 1974, the UW Retirement Association (UWRA) was established. Blumenfeld signed on as the first—and only—editor of the Retiree Report. He continued his regular habits and friendships. “I had lunch with Irv once a week for more than 30 years,” said Bill Hevly, retired director of instructional media. “Irv’s housekeeper used to come on Wednesdays so instead of going home for lunch he would stay on campus and play pool at the Faculty Club. He is a good friend and a good person.”

“Irv has no patience with mediocrity,” said UW Retiree Mary K. Brown. “He himself won’t settle for less than the best that is in him.”

“He was an editor who didn’t editorialize, but poured his expertise into getting the job done,” said retired Publications Services Director and UWRA President Howard Miller.

He has outlasted the Retirement Association’s four directors.

“He has so much common sense and he’s so reliable,” said Alva Treadgold, the founding director.

“Irv is a sweet, sour, irascible rascal who is fiercely devoted to the University, the retirees and the world of information,” said Jeannette Franks, who is stepping down as director after 12 years.

Blumenfeld will continue his volunteer association with the UW on a less intense basis. “I’ve never been any place that I liked any better,” he said.

Other than that, he professes to have no fixed future plans. “Listen, baby, I’m 90 years old,” he said. His friends are skeptical. “He hasn’t slowed down a bit,” said Hevly. ¶

Kay Rodriguez, University Relations