Lovick retires from state patrol

  • <br>Enterprise staff
  • Monday, March 3, 2008 6:40am

The first day of the new year was also the first time in 31 years Speaker Pro Tem John Lovick (D-Mill Creek) didn’t wake up in the morning and hop into his patrol car in the driveway.

Lovick retired Friday, Dec. 31, after serving 30 years and nine months as an officer in the Washington State Patrol. Before he joined the State Patrol, he started out in the Coast Guard at age 18.

He never intended to get into politics. But his son – now an officer with the Los Angeles Police Department – challenged him when Lovick said he couldn’t run for a seat on the Mill Creek City Council.

“He said, ‘Dad, this is the first time I’ve heard you say that you can’t do something. You always tell us there’s nothing we can’t do. Remember when we didn’t know how to water ski, but we learned how?’ And he was right to call me out on that,” Lovick said.

Lovick ran for the City Council and won with 65 percent of the vote. Then he ran for the House, won, and became Speaker Pro Tem in 2003, a position he has retained for the upcoming legislative session.

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