J. Geoffrey “Geoff” Washa

J. Ge­of­frey “Geoff” Washa, 81, of West Bend found peace on Mon­day, May 22, 2023, at home with his fam­ily by his side.
He was born on Au­gust 8, 1941, to the late Joseph and Laura (nee Koudelka) Washa in Mil­wau­kee.
Most of you know him as Geoff, Coach, or Mr. Washa, but he began life with a name tra­di­tion­ally given to the first son, Joseph—for those who won­dered what the “J.” stood for, now you know. To his fam­ily, he was known as Dad and a won­der­ful hus­band. Just as he taught and coached his stu­dents and ath­letes through life, he too taught and coached us through life with in­cred­i­ble in­tegrity and a spe­cial en­cour­ag­ing way to al­ways do your very best!
Being a stu­dent/ath­lete helped Geoff to be an in­flu­en­tial coach. Geoff ex­celled in wrestling. He grad­u­ated from Mil­wau­kee’s Wash­ing­ton High School in 1959 and went on to let­ter all four years wrestling for the Uni­ver­sity of Wis­con­sin La Crosse. Geoff grad­u­ated in 1963 with ma­jors in his­tory and phys­i­cal ed­u­ca­tion.
While in col­lege he met De­lores (Dee) Mc­Clurg. They mar­ried on June 15, 1963, just two weeks after their col­lege grad­u­a­tion! Dee says, “it all began with a smile and that sense of hap­pi­ness stayed with her for all their 60 years to­gether.” She al­ways ad­mired his sense of love for fam­ily, plus his un­wa­ver­ing honor and com­mit­ment.
Geoff’s first teach­ing job began in Bruce, Wis­con­sin, where he taught his­tory and phys­i­cal ed­u­ca­tion, as well as coached wrestling and track. Geoff de­vel­oped a spe­cial kin­ship with some of his first stu­dents, es­pe­cially his wrestlers coach­ing im­por­tant life lessons. Geoff next taught his­tory and coached wrestling, track, and JV foot­ball in Dodgeville.
In 1967, they moved to Mayville, where they lived and worked for the next 30 years. He taught world his­tory to fresh­man and had many classes be­liev­ing he was only 29 years old for many years–al­ways a kid at heart. Geoff’s 34-year coach­ing ca­reer in­cluded being Mayville’s var­sity wrestling coach for 24 years and as­sis­tant var­sity foot­ball coach until 1984, when he be­came the in­terim head foot­ball coach. Geoff stayed on as an ath­letic di­rec­tor and a high school ad­min­is­tra­tor until his early re­tire­ment in 1997 due to his Non-Hodgkin’s Lym­phoma.
Just as he pushed oth­ers to al­ways go hard, be strong, fight tough, he too was a fighter. His fam­ily and friends ad­mired his mul­ti­ple fights with can­cer, a suc­cess­ful 1998 stem cell trans­plant. He was a sur­vivor and would go on to enjoy his re­tire­ment.
In 2001, Geoff and Dee moved to Big Cedar Lake, West Bend, where they en­joyed shar­ing their days on their golden pond. Life on the lake meant days of fun and quiet times with their fam­ily, es­pe­cially their two grand­daugh­ters, trav­el­ing and spend­ing his days qui­etly re­lax­ing, feed­ing the birds, fish­ing, and “doing what­ever he dammed well pleased!”
Those Geoff leaves be­hind to cher­ish his mem­ory in­cludes more than 3,000 stu­dents and ath­letes, along with his lov­ing wife, Dee Washa; two chil­dren, J. Bradley (Mar­lea Fur­long and her daugh­ter Brynn) Washa and Kathryn (Randy) Klopfer; two grand­daugh­ters, Bri­anna Klopfer and McKenna Klopfer; niece, Laura (Kevin) Bagin; brother-in-law, Gary (Lin) Mc­Clurg; sis­ter-in-law, Pa­tri­cia (Al) Han­son; and many rel­a­tives and friends. In ad­di­tion to his par­ents, he was pre­ceded in death by his sis­ter, Ju­dith (Ken) Mc­Cool.
VIS­I­TA­TION: The fam­ily will greet rel­a­tives and friends on Mon­day, July 3, 2023 at Trin­ity Lutheran Church, 140 N. 7th Ave., West Bend, from 9:30 a.m. until 10:45 a.m.
SER­VICE: A Cel­e­bra­tion of Life ser­vice in re­mem­brance of Geoff will be at 11 a.m.
In lieu of flow­ers, memo­ri­als in Geoff’s name are ap­pre­ci­ated. Do­na­tions can be made to the Uni­ver­sity of Wis­con­sin Car­bone Can­cer Cen­ter: UW Foun­da­tion U.S. Bank Lock­box 78807 Mil­wau­kee, WI 53278-0807 or: https://​give.​wis​cmed​icin​e.​org/​give/​392780/#!/​donation/​checkout
Myrhum Pat­ten Fu­neral & Cre­ma­tion Ser­vice has been en­trusted with Geoff’s arrange­ments. Ad­di­tional in­for­ma­tion and guest book may be found at www.​myrhum-​patten.​com.