Chelan County Coroner Wayne Harris Announces Retirement

Wayne Harris has announced his impending retirement as Chelan County Coroner.

In this case the coroner is an elected position. It's the job of the coroner to determine the cause and manner of death.

Harris has served for the better part of two decades; in 2006 he was tapped to succeed Gina Fino, a fellow Republican. Since then he has been continually reelected.

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Prior to assuming his current role, Harris was a longtime funeral director in East Wenatchee.

He will serve through the end of 2025 - at which point county commissioners will choose from a list of prospective replacements put forth by the Chelan County GOP. Such is the partisan nature of the position. Harris' replacement, according to Chelan County Auditor Skip Moore, will serve through 2026.

Harris says the job is more taxing than ever, rife with personnel cuts, escalating demands and onerous commutes.

"We don't have a pathologist that comes to Wenatchee anymore," Harris laments. "So we have to drive our bodies to medical examiners' offices around the state. They want us there at 8 o'clock, so we have to get up and leave, and wait for the body, and come back."

"With just two of us - my coworker and I - it's becoming quite a burden." (The coworker he's referring to is Chief Deputy Coroner Earl Crowe. Harris hopes that the Coroner's Office will enlist a second deputy in his absence.)

That said, Harris relishes the ability to provide closure for grieving families.

"That's my highlight of my job," he says. "We've done on that several occasions - people are unidentified or the family hasn't known where they've been for years. We track family down after a person passes away. And the family says, 'We've been looking for them for 20 years. We wondered where they ended up."

"Most rewarding part of the job."