Karen Verrill worked closely with Jill Severn for nearly 20 years to create the highly acclaimed “The State We’re In: Washington” LWVWA textbook. After Severn’s death, Verrill cares for Severn’s cat, Homie. 

By Dee Anne Finken, Communications Portfolio Director, LWV of Washington

The League sadly acknowledges the passing of longtime friend and supporter Jill Severn, whose many achievements included helping to transform the civics textbook The State We’re In: Washington↗️ into a treasure for thousands of Washington youngsters and their parents. 

Along with graphic artist Leslie Hoge and project manager Karen Verrill, Severn was one of three women who turned a simple, mimeographed report about state government into an acclaimed bound publication. It was Severn who insisted the textbook feature the people who called the Pacific Northwest home long before white, Asian, Latino and African American settlers arrived.  

“The most important thing you have to do is include the tribes,” Severn told colleague and longtime League member Verrill, of Thurston County. It was 2008, and Verrill had just sat down with Severn to discuss ways to make the publication, then in its fifth printing, more meaningful. 

In time, “TSWI” featured thoughtful stories and insights about the Nisqually, Suquamish, Skokomish, Kalispel, Skagit, Snohomish, Makah, Swinomish, Squaxin, Tulalip, Yakama, Puyallup, Lummi and other tribes. The new details were woven into the tapestry of the narrative.   

Severn was always thinking of others and helping them improve their lives, Verrill said.  

“Jill took being involved in improving the lives of others a priority.”  

Verrill said Severn “was also very interested in helping see that things were fair.” She said Severn was an unofficial foster parent to 15 youngsters during her lifetime.  

Also notable was her work birthing Quixote Village↗️, a tiny-house village in West Olympia for adults experiencing homelessness.   

Quixote Village’s first inhabitants were people who had been told they could no longer camp around Capitol Lake in Olympia. With help from local churches, the campers organized into a working group. “I remember Jill saying she was so impressed with how the people used democracy to run their meetings,” Verrill said. 

Severn then proceeded to secure $3 million in grants, bringing a dream to reality.  

Severn served as a staffer for Lt. Gov. Denny Heck, when he was a state senator.  “Jill lifted up everyone around her, whether it was establishing a village for the unhoused or igniting civic consciousness in our youth through her spectacular book “The State We’re In: Washington,’” Heck said. 

“Great friend. Effective and unrelenting activist. And a writer’s writer,” he added.  

“TSWI,” now in its eighth edition, is published by the nonprofit League of Women Voters of Washington Education Fund↗️. Featuring colorful images, pleasant reading and informative graphics, it is used in classrooms throughout the state and is endorsed by the state Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction and other organizations.  

In 2019, with guidance from elementary school educators, Severn wrote the League’s first civics textbook for grades 3-5.  

Severn had been a columnist for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer and Seattle Weekly, an editorial writer for The Olympian and a speechwriter for Govs. Booth Gardner and Gary Locke.She also researched and wrote for 15 state agencies. She would say, “If I don’t know something, I know who to call to find out.” 

Severn also contributed to the JOLT, the nonprofit Journal of Olympia, Lacey & Tumwater, providing guidance to its officers and writing a popular gardening column.  

Early last month, Thurston County League friends hosted a community-wide retirement party for her. A letter from the LWV board of directors was read, thanking Severn for her tireless efforts to help others. It also noted that Severn had cooked dinner for the village’s 30 residents every Wednesday for the past seven years. 

Thurston League friend Karen Tvedt said she was struck by the extent of love shown Severn at the party. 

A memorial for Severn, who died on Sept. 21, will be at 1 pm, Saturday, Oct. 24, at First Christian Church in Olympia.