Jean Trapnell; Ex-Member of Community College Board
Jean B. Trapnell, a former member of the Board of Governors of the California Community Colleges and a veteran English professor at Los Angeles Valley College, died Aug. 13 at her Westwood home.
She was 80 and had cancer.
Then-Gov. Edmund G. Brown Jr. appointed her in 1975 to a four-year term on the board, which sets policy for the state’s two-year schools.
For 17 years before that appointment she was an English teacher at Valley College and chairman of the department from 1959 to 1962.
A native of Scotland, she received her degree from Adelphi College and did doctorate work at UCLA.
She was a homemaker with two daughters in Westwood when she led a successful battle to save the University Elementary School for gifted children, which her elder daughter attended.
The city school board had ordered the school to leave the public facility it was occupying, and Mrs. Trapnell helped relocate it at UCLA.
Survivors include her husband, Coles, and two grandsons. Contributions in her name are being asked to the City of Hope in Duarte.
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