[Congressional Record Volume 161, Number 133 (Wednesday, September 16, 2015)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E1303]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                      HONORING DR. JOHN C. WARMAN

                                 ______
                                 

                         HON. BARBARA COMSTOCK

                              of virginia

                    in the house of representatives

                     Wednesday, September 16, 2015

  Mrs. COMSTOCK. Mr. Speaker, the raucous Gonzaga fight song was sung 
quietly for the first time in a long time on Tuesday, September 1st 
when Dr. John C. ``Doc'' Warman's coffin was borne from a packed St. 
Aloysius church in Washington, DC where men and women met to mourn the 
passing of a legend.
  A lover of the classics, a supremely gifted musician, and a director 
of plays and musicals at Gonzaga College High School, Warman began 
teaching Latin and Greek at the all-boys Catholic institution on Eye 
Street and North Capitol, just a few blocks from the Capitol, in 1967.
  Born to Frank and Louise Warman on October 18, 1939, Warman began 
playing the piano when he was still in diapers and could quote the 
classics from memory by the time he was seven years old.
  Warman's recitations from the classics could bring a dead language to 
life. ``Arma virumque cano,'' he would begin before launching into 
Virgil's Aeneid. For those who don't know, that means ``I sing of arms 
and of a man,'' in other words, a Warman.
  Warman was the valedictorian of his class at Gonzaga in 1957 and 
later graduated from Georgetown University with honors. He became 
``Doc'' in 1986 when Georgetown conferred upon him the degree of Doctor 
of Humane Letters.
  ``Doc's sense of optimism would lift us up when times were tough,'' 
said William J. Wilson, Jr., both a student and colleague of Warman's, 
of the Gonzaga he knew as a student--a school of dwindling enrollment 
in the late 1960s and early 1970s, threatened with potential closure.
  The 1968 riots in DC following the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther 
King, Jr. had left many parents worried and looking to other schools 
outside of the city to send their children. Doc's dedication to Gonzaga 
and support of his students helped usher the school through this 
difficult time.
  Warman was also well known for his formal dress in and out of the 
classroom. Students at Gonzaga testified that they had only ever seen 
Doc dressed in a suit and tie or the tuxedo he would don during his 
theater performances.
  ``Sometimes I wondered whether Doc was born wearing a suit,'' said 
Wilson.
  It was in a suit and tie that he passed quietly of heart failure 
before classes began on August 25, 2015.
  While the Gonzaga community mourns the passing of Warman, over these 
past weeks many kind and joyful memories of Doc have been shared by 
students, colleagues, family, and friends. The legacy of Doc Warman 
lives on through the indelible impression he left on the entire Gonzaga 
community.
  The back wall of Gonzaga's Sheehy Theater, which is nearly 120 years 
old, is spattered with graffiti, and among the etched-in autographs 
there, ``Warman '57'' looms large--``the heart of the Gonzaga stage'' 
that bears his name. He piloted more than 350 performances from the pit 
piano where he was a fixture, and he served as a producer, associate 
producer, director, or musical director in 83 productions.
  ``Gone, but not forgotten,'' said Ra'Mond Jamar Shephard Hines. 
Hines, a recent student from Gonzaga's class of 2014, said at the 
funeral that ``The way the Latin and the Greek flowed off his tongue 
was like poetry in and of itself.''
  Warman never married, and having no biological children, he instead 
devoted his life to his ``Men of Eye Street.'' All classes were 
canceled on the day of his funeral--a beloved teacher, colleague, 
mentor, and friend's last gift to his students.

                          ____________________