Lakeside School

Ruth Kagi ’63 was presented the 2022 Distinguished Alumni Award at Upper School assembly on Wednesday, March 23. The following citation was read aloud at the Upper School assembly and highlights her commitment to public service, education, and children and families. Prior to assembly, Kagi met with Upper School history students in Comparative Government and Politics, where she discussed her legislative career. Following assembly, Kagi spent time at the Middle School meeting with student reporters from the Lakeside Leo, the Middle School student newspaper. 

Ruth Kagi ’63
Distinguished Alumni Award 2022

When Ruth Kagi looks back at her high school years at St. Nicholas School, she doesn’t remember engaging in politics. That might be surprising for a beloved Washington state legislator who has been described as both “the godmother of early learning in our state” and “the conscience of our caucus when it comes to children and families.” It was, as Kagi puts it, a different time, one in which St. Nick girls were cheerleaders for Lakeside boys, and “we didn’t look at the world around us in terms of social issues.” But her education gave Kagi a rock-solid foundation for a life in policy and politics: how to write and write well, how to analyze an issue from all sides. Just as important were the experiences she picked up in the drama class she took at Lakeside every summer which helped her become comfortable speaking in front of people.

But during Kagi’s self-described “rarefied” childhood in Shoreline, politics were part of the family fabric. Her mother, Jane Nettleton LeCocq, once ran — albeit unsuccessfully — for the school board and was founder of an Associated Republican Women chapter in north King County. Kagi spent her first two years of college at Mills College, a private all-women school in California, but she was disappointed by the dearth of political science classes and transferred to the University of Washington. That’s where her conservative beliefs were turned upside down. “I took an economics course with the famous Dr. Henry Buechel, and I suddenly saw the world through a completely different prism,” she says. “I really questioned the wealth I’d grown up in, and the relationship of the upper class to the rest of the world.” It transformed the way Kagi looked at government — and education.

After earning a master’s degree in public administration in 1968 from the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University, Kagi became a management intern at the U.S. Department of Labor in Washington, D.C. She then returned to Seattle to help establish a regional office. She spent 15 years in the Manpower Administration, which in 1975 became the Employment and Training Administration. “When I went to a work meeting, I was often the only woman in the room,” she says. She rose to become deputy regional administrator before leaving the agency to spend time with her young children.

Kagi didn’t stay away long, however: She started volunteering with the League of Women Voters, chairing a study of runaway youth in Seattle and a statewide study of children’s services, and becoming well-versed in the child welfare system. She tirelessly lobbied for children’s issues on behalf of the league in Olympia. Gov. Mike Lowry appointed her chair of the Washington Council for Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect. Along the way, she worked with many legislators and started becoming unsatisfied looking in from the outside. “I would talk to legislators, and they would walk into a room and make decisions about increasing funding for childcare or changing laws about the placement of foster children. I wanted to be in the room where those decisions were made,” she says. And so, in 1998, she ran for the state House of Representatives in the 32nd District. She won handily, serving until she retired in early 2019.

During her tenure, Kagi remained steadfast in her dedication to improving the child welfare system, expanding early learning opportunities, and reforming drug-sentencing laws. Early in her legislative career — and driven by her family’s history of alcohol abuse — she spearheaded the passage of House Bill 2338, which reduced sentences for nonviolent drug offenders and funded resources for treatment. In 2002, Kagi became chair of the House Early Learning and Human Services Committee, leading it for 16 years. In 2015, she sponsored the Early Start Act, which established standards for childcare and improved training. Soon after, she led the creation of the state Department of Children, Youth, and Families, which combined the scattershot services of early learning, child protection, and juvenile justice into one visionary, efficient, responsive whole.

For her far-sighted reforms of drug sentencing, her groundbreaking expansion of early-learning opportunities, her unwavering advocacy for foster children and child welfare, and her strong leadership on behalf of children, youth, and families, the Lakeside/St. Nicholas Alumni Association is proud to honor Ruth Kagi ’63 with the 2022 Distinguished Alumni Award.

Learn about Lakeside's Distinguished Alumni Award and read citations from recent recipients, including Noah Bopp ’92, Marjorie Liu ’96, and Lt. Col. Tim Curry ’94, here.