Willie Yahiro was a Watsonville High School graduate whose love for his community inspired him to make his life and career here. He spent nearly three decades as a Pajaro Valley Unified School District trustee and ran his successful eponymous insurance company for years.
Yahiro died Monday in Stanford Hospital. He was 84.
In addition to being a Wildcat from the class of 1959, Yahiro was inducted into the Watsonville High School Hall of Fame in 2000.
He taught at his alma mater for 12 years and coached athletics. He said during his final meeting in 2018 that his mission was to make the community a better place for the youth.
“It’s about the future,” he said. “One of the reasons I like to be around young people is that they are excited about what’s coming up tomorrow.”
Yahiro began his time as a trustee in 1990, and saw the district through a near bankruptcy, and through two successful bond measures that helped rebuild and improve the district, says friend Bill Beecher.
“The athletic fields at P.V. High and E.A. Hall schools and safeguarding Radcliff are three of his proudest accomplishments,” Beecher wrote in an email.
As a coach, Yahiro mentored numerous young men to be good athletes, but also better citizens, Beecher said.
Many of these came to visit Willie over the last nine months, he added.
“Monday evening we lost a friend,” Beecher said. “(This) is a loss for me and his family, but also to the community as a whole.”
Blanca Medrano, Yahiro’s partner at his insurance agency for 32 years, described him as “generous, giving, funny and smart.”
Yahiro had retired from his business, but still offered advice and leadership, and occasionally still visited, Medrano said.
“This is such a loss for the community,” she said. “He was such a special person.”
A longtime supporter of career and technical education, Yahiro said he was proud of championing a senior requirement for one year of career and vocational classes, a move he said was meant to serve the 30 percent of students who choose not to go to college.
Yahiro also promoted Hispanic youth activities and the Veterans Day celebrations, Beecher said, adding that he was a “role model for us all,”
“He reached out and helped others,” he said. “What a guy. I—we—will miss him.”
PVUSD Trustee Kim De Serpa called Yahiro “a friend and leader I admired greatly.”
“I learned the value of his historical perspective, which helped to inform many important decisions the Trustees undertook,” De Serpa said. “He was a champion for students, sports programs and the success of PVUSD. His legacy of humor and his commitment to ethics will never be forgotten.”
