Born in Bangor on May 27, 1941, he was the eldest child of Reginald and Marion Warren. The family lived briefly in Ellsworth Falls before moving to Topsham, where Vern left high school early to pursue a work life of rapid change careers.
He was a cook at Ernie’s Drive-In in Brunswick, and a respected mechanic at a local Volvo dealership. In his early twenties, Warren joined the crew of a Louisiana oil rig. That job led to another in Bahrain, an island in the Persian Gulf, where he worked with an oil exploration team.
Returning in the late 1960s with a British-born wife, Warren was a reporter for the Bath-Brunswick Times Record. Five years later, he joined the UPI wire service in Augusta where he covered the Maine Legislature.
He had a passion for racing cars on the frozen New Meadows River. He rode a bicycle across the United States, and in 1982 ran for governor as a Libertarian in a four-candidate race won by Joseph Brennan. Vern beat out a second independent candidate, finishing third behind Charles Craigen.
In his later years, Warren wrote and published several community newspapers, among them The New Paper in Richmond. He wed and divorced five times, but never married the final love of his life, Appalachian Trail hiker Crystal Doddo. They moved to Southern California and lived in an RV park called Slab City near Palm Springs.
Stricken with lung cancer, Warren was given six months to live in 2009. He defied the odds five years. Vern was on route to Maine, driven by his close friend Todd Defreitas of Williamstown, Mass., when he died in his sleep at a motel in Shreveport, La.
His longtime companion, Crystal, described Vern as having “an amazing acceptance of people. He hardly ever had anything bad to say about anybody.”
Vern is survived by sisters Mary Sharp of Gardiner and Catherine Blackstone of Winthrop. A brother, Paul Warren, lives in Topsham. The family plans a springtime memorial service in Ellsworth Falls, where Vern’s ashes will be interred in Juniper Cemetery where his parents are buried.
Donations in Vern’s memory may be sent to Hospice of Imperial Valley, 300 South Imperial Ave., El Centro, Calif. 92243.
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