Canzano: Get to know the judge at the center of the Pac-12 case
I spoke with Judge Gary Libey.
I’ve never met Judge Gary Libey in person. But I immediately liked the guy the first time I got to watch him work.
I spoke 1-on-1 with Libey for a spell on Wednesday.
More on our conversation in a moment.
The judge at the center of the court case that pits Oregon State and Washington State v. the Pac-12 Conference and Commissioner George Kliavkoff was an absolute hoot during the September hearing.
Libey started by announcing that he and his wife, Trudy, had served funnel cake at the Whitman County Fairgrounds the previous day. Then, he made a joke about all the Pac-12 mascots gathered in his courtroom. And Libey said that he had a doctor’s appointment scheduled for later that afternoon and hoped he could make it.
“We have a small town here less than 3,000 people,” he said from the bench in Colfax, Wash. “And it seems like we have about that many here in the court room.”
I appreciated the entire folksy scene.
Libey ruled in favor of the Beavers and Cougars that day, granting their request for a temporary restraining order in Whitman County Superior Court. The hearing for a preliminary injunction is set for Nov. 14, at which point Libey will likely determine who has voting rights on the Pac-12 board.
Who is Gary Libey? What’s his story? I went in search of answers while we wait for the attorneys on both sides to present their arguments.
Gary Libey is the son of a police officer. He was born in Spokane. His mother worked at a Montgomery Ward’s department store. He’s married to a woman named Trudy, a retired dental assistant. He has two grown children and there are five grandchildren.
Trudy grew up in Colfax, and has lived there her whole life.
“My parents mowed all the city parks,” she told me.
They met decades ago when Gary, an attorney in town, brought his two young children into her dental practice for a teeth cleaning. He was divorced. His kids took a liking to Trudy. And months later, Gary was sitting outside the local bar and grill — the “Hyde Out” — when he noticed Trudy on the other side of the street.
“Hey,” he called out to her, “come have a beer with me?”
“Honey,” she told me on Wednesday, “that was our first date.”
Gary and Trudy Libey cut large figures in Colfax. And why not? They live in the town of 2,911 and pour themselves into community groups, the hospital, schools, and non-profits. I phoned the Whitman County Rural Library District because I was told the hub of the enterprise — called “The Center” — wouldn’t exist without Gary and Trudy Libey.
Five years ago, they donated $104,000 to help complete the $540,000 construction project. The venue now includes a small library, a learning center, a technology classroom and meeting spaces. People sometimes reserve the rooms for a wedding reception or a club meeting. A free senior fitness class meets in the space twice a week.
“The library doesn’t have that big of a budget,” said Shirley Cornelius, the library’s business manager. “We couldn’t have kept all this going without them.”
Gary and Trudy donate $10,000 every year to local elementary schools through the Kiwanis Club. They show up for the town’s Christmas parade, belong to the Rotary Club, and support the food bank. They also made a donation to improve the local public golf course, which serves as the site of the city’s annual Thanksgiving fun-run.
“Who gives back that much?” Cornelius said. “Gary has a great heart. But Trudy is the driving force behind him. You know, her mother’s still alive and we always see her taking her mom out to lunch and picking her up for coffee.”
A few years ago the Libey’s were in Coeur d’ Alene, Idaho on a vacation when they bought a $100 raffle ticket. The fundraiser benefited the local food bank. The winning prize was a StanCraft luxury wooden boat and a Porsche sports car. More than one resident in Colfax told me that Gary and Trudy Libey won the $150,000 prize package and promptly donated it back to the charity.
Turns out, that’s not entirely accurate.
Gary and Trudy indeed gifted the expensive wooden boat back to the charity, but they kept the sports car. They drove it off the lot, then realized in horror a few days later that they were on the hook for taxes in both Idaho and Washington. Also, the couple found themselves driving a white Porsche with bright red leather interior down Main Street in Colfax. It wasn’t their groove.
“We took the Porsche back,” Trudy said.
Gary Libey played a little bit of baseball in high school in Spokane. His older sister likes to tease him by announcing to everyone that his favorite position was “left out.”
“I wasn’t much of an athlete,” he likes to tell people.
I reached Libey via telephone on Wednesday during a lunch break in his courtroom. He told me about attending Washington State as an undergraduate, then applying to Gonzaga University law school, where he was placed on the wait list at first. We spoke about the litigator job that brought him to Colfax, and how most of his mother’s side of the family is buried in the local cemetery.
Last month, Rogers High School (Spokane) put Gary Libey in the school’s ‘Walk of Fame.’ He and Trudy attended the ceremony and celebrated with a few other classmates who were honored.
“That was pretty cool,” he said, “I got my picture on the wall.”
Libey is used to presiding over serious matters in his courtroom. He told me he received a letter this week from the grandparents of a person he recently sentenced in a negligent-homicide case. They thought he’d been too harsh on their grandson. He isn’t allowed to write them back, but the judge read the letter, gave it thought, and filed it away.
“When I make a decision there’s definitely consequences — real-life consequences,” Libey told me. “I try to be careful and deliberate. I ask myself ‘Would I like to be my own judge?’ I look at myself in the mirror in the morning and that’s how I start my day.”
Libey is 72.
His term on the bench will expire at the end of 2024. He said he’ll retire and focus more on playing golf and spending time with Trudy. On Wednesday, Libey told me the story of his election as the county’s superior-court judge. His campaign strategy was anchored, naturally, by Trudy.
“Trudy knows just about everybody in the county,” the judge said. “She talks with everyone and anyone. She was going to be my campaign manager, put the signs out, and do all that stuff. I filed my paperwork, we announced I was running for judge and we were all ready to campaign.
“We set aside $50,000 for the campaign.”
Then, nobody ran against him.
They decided to buy stock with the $50,000. The judge remembers part of the investment holdings being companies such as Microsoft and Boeing. Years later, the campaign account swelled to $104,000.
Now, we all know where that money ended up.
“I was pretty succcesful in my law career for 41 years,” he said. “I saved. We put money way. Jesus, we don’t really need it more than other people do. I always look at the other person’s eyes and think ‘they need that $20 or $50 more than we do.’”
The donations to the library and schools are important to him. Libey sees them as an investment in young people in his community. He said: “I want to see kids in school. I don’t want to see them in juvenile detention.”
I asked Libey what he thought attorneys who appear in his courtroom might say about him as a judge. He said: “I hope they’d say fair, thoughtful, independent and empathetic.”
Said one attorney who has regularly appeared in Libey’s courtroom: “He has a reputation of being very fair. And he’s decisive. His decisions follow the law.”
Maybe some wonder how a judge who attended WSU could preside over a case involving the Cougars’ athletic future. Or how a guy who was once the president of the Whitman County Cougar Club could be impartial.
Said Libey: “I hear cases in Whitman County all the time that involve WSU. WSU has been a party in a bunch of cases in my courtroom over the years. Here’s what I do: I treat them like anybody else.”
Libey and I did not talk about the Nov. 14 hearing. We didn’t speak about the Pac-12 or Kliavkoff. The only football discussed during our conversation related to his son Patrick, a walk-on linebacker who became team captain at the University of Idaho years ago.
“He earned a scholarship,” Libey said.
Oregon State and Washington State are seeking clarity on the governance of the Pac-12 Conference. They’re suing the conference and its Commissioner, George Kliavkoff. The two left-behind schools face an uncertain and anxious future. Both universities have indicated that they’d like to rebuild the Pac-2.
The NCAA allows a three-year grace period for conferences that lose members to return to the required minimum of six schools. Before any of that, though, the Beavers and Cougars need to know who controls the Pac-12 board votes and what assets they might retain.
I asked Libey how he approaches the decisions he finds in front of him on the bench. He said: “I can’t say I decide cases any such way. I do it thoroughly and carefully. I put as much time as I can into each case.”
In September I made a note to find out more about the folksy judge. Gary Libey cast a calming presence that day in court. He was even-keeled, quirky and thoughtful. His quips about funnel cakes, the fairgrounds, and his afternoon doctor’s appointment were a welcome sideshow.
“My dad had such great respect for the legal system and for attorneys,” Libey told me on Wednesday. “He thought that would be a good way to me to go.
“As it turned out he was right.”
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I feel better about the future of OSU/WSU and the Pac12 after reading this. Also feel better about the world. Thank you.
Impressive and touching. I was (I guess still am-never really leaves) a courtroom guy, a litigator for 45 years. I loved it. Judge L. is the epitome of what we’ve all hoped for, every time we walk beyond the bar, step into the ring. Mrs. L is an obvious gem too. To say, even 3,000 miles away in Carolina , I am fascinated by ‘all this’ is a total understatement. Let the chips fall where they may…