Dates

• Existence: 1920 - 2007

Biography

Warne Harry Nunn was born in Spokane, Washington, in 1920. His parents divorced a short time later, and his mother brought him to Oregon, where he grew up on a farm outside Salem. He attended Willamette University, graduating in 1941. From 1942 to 1945, during World War II, he served in the Army Air Corps and was stationed in Texas. In 1943, he and Delores Netz were married; they later had three children. In 1945, after the war, he returned to Salem and began a career in civil service. In 1952, he became assistant public utilities commissioner for Oregon, and in 1956, Governor Elmo Smith appointed him as the first director of the state Department of Motor Vehicles. He became assistant secretary of state of Oregon in 1957 and Governor Mark Hatfield's chief of staff from 1959 to 1967. After Hatfield was elected as a U.S. senator, Nunn served as Hatfield's chief of staff in 1967, just long enough to help him set up an office in Washington, D.C. He returned to Oregon, then worked for Pacific Power and Light until retiring in 1983. He was also a trustee of the Meyer Memorial Trust from 1983 until his death in 2007.

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