Paris Earls; School Administrator

Paris Earls of Ventura, a top administrator in the Conejo Valley Unified School District, died Monday after a long battle with leukemia. He was 52.

A memorial service will be at 7 p.m. Wednesday at St. Paschal Baylon Church, 155 E. Janss Road, Thousand Oaks. Funeral services will be Friday in Palm Springs.

Earls’ family has asked that friends donate to a scholarship fund in lieu of flowers. Checks can be made out to the Paris Earls Memorial Scholarship Fund and sent to the school district, 1400 E. Janss Road, Thousand Oaks 91362.

Colleagues remembered Earls as a quiet and gentle man as well as a hard worker who refused to let his illness slow him down.

“When he got leukemia, he just didn’t want to quit,” Supt. William Seaver said. “I don’t think he missed a football game of any of our schools.”

“He would go to the hospital every day and then he would come back to work,” said Richard Simpson, assistant superintendent for instruction. He described Earls as “a man of tremendous courage and intensity.”

Colleagues said Earls was diagnosed with leukemia in April and began chemotherapy in May. The illness had gone into remission but returned shortly before the Christmas break.

Earls served as principal of Westlake and Newbury Park high schools before he was named secondary education director in 1989. He had previously worked in school districts in Palm Springs, Cathedral City, San Juan Capistrano, Mission Viejo and Laguna Niguel.

Earls also spent nine years in the Air Force as a public relations officer.

He is survived by his wife, Cruz, an elementary school principal in Oxnard; five children and three stepchildren.