{"id":33859,"date":"2025-05-12T10:59:51","date_gmt":"2025-05-12T17:59:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/medicine.wsu.edu\/news\/?p=33859"},"modified":"2025-05-13T07:03:05","modified_gmt":"2025-05-13T14:03:05","slug":"tribute-mary-selecky","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/medicine.wsu.edu\/news\/2025\/05\/12\/tribute-mary-selecky\/","title":{"rendered":"College Community Pays Tribute to Mary Selecky, Former State Secretary of Health and WSU Medical School Supporter"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The Elson S. Floyd College of Medicine expresses its deepest condolences to loved ones and colleagues of Mary Selecky, former Washington State Secretary of Health and community advocate for WSU’s medical school. She passed away in April<\/a> at age 78 following a decades-long career leading a public health district in eastern Washington and later serving as the state’s top health official.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Mary was a key advocate for the creation of the college,” said Department of Translational Medicine and Physiology Chair Ken Roberts, PhD. “Elson and his team consulted with her extensively and we benefited from her connections in Olympia, her street cred in rural Washington, and her amazing ability to convince people to do things. She was a critical player in the work leading up to the legislation. Mary will be deeply missed.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Selecky maintained a connection with the college from its founding to recent years, including the creation of the college’s current strategic plan<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“She was a staunch contributor of ours and said yes every time we asked her to participate as a community member representative, the most recent example being strategic plan development,” said Vice Dean for Clinical Affairs Jeff Haney, MD.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

College of Medicine Dean James Record, MD, JD, FACP, noted his appreciation for her input during strategic plan meetings and commended her commitment to improving the health and wellbeing of Washington communities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Dedicated and caring for the community, she was a powerful voice for the mission,” Record said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Selecky will be missed for her steadfast guidance on work across multiple college operations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“I was deeply saddened to learn of Mary\u2019s passing,” said Senior Director of Strategic Management Erika Fleck, MBA. “She was a valued member of the strategic planning steering committee and made significant contributions throughout that process. In addition, she served on the Community Council, offering thoughtful guidance to the college and consistently advocating for rural and underserved communities, ensuring our work remained meaningfully connected to them in alignment with our mission.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Others at the college shared recollections of working alongside Selecky at community organizations as well as the college.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“I served on the Empire Health Foundation and Empire Health Community Foundation boards with Mary for the last seven years. She and I were also the founding members for the recently created Empire Health Community Foundation board,” said Luisita Francis, MD, the college’s associate dean of leadership development. “Mary was incredibly thoughtful, collaborative, and gracious with her time for the community and for the university. She will be greatly missed across the community.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Selecky’s decades-long career included leading a public health district in eastern Washington before serving as the state’s top health official.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25158,"featured_media":24542,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[15],"tags":[102],"wsuwp_university_location":[],"wsuwp_university_org":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/medicine.wsu.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33859"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/medicine.wsu.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/medicine.wsu.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medicine.wsu.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/25158"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medicine.wsu.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33859"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/medicine.wsu.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33859\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33869,"href":"https:\/\/medicine.wsu.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33859\/revisions\/33869"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medicine.wsu.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24542"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/medicine.wsu.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33859"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medicine.wsu.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33859"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medicine.wsu.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33859"},{"taxonomy":"wsuwp_university_location","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medicine.wsu.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/wsuwp_university_location?post=33859"},{"taxonomy":"wsuwp_university_org","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medicine.wsu.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/wsuwp_university_org?post=33859"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}