Kreps comes full circle, retires as Bruin AD

“It’s just time for me to get up each morning and do what I want to do and not deal with all the day-to-day stuff everyday — so that’s good, and we’ll see where things take me,” said Kreps, 65. “The last few years have been a real struggle because I’ve had some health issues and my wife passed away, and then I was dealing with COVID problems at work, so the last four years have not been that much fun.”

Howard’s wife of 41 years, Christine Kreps, passed away in 2020 at age 63. Christine was an art teacher at Columbia High for the last 10 years of her life.

After he graduated from Columbia High in 1975, Kreps moved to Tacoma to attend Pacific Lutheran University. That’s where he met Christine and played on the Lutes’ football team. Kreps earned his teaching degree at PLU and in 1980 got a teaching job at Franklin Pierce High School in Tacoma. He coached the football, track and field and girls basketball teams there until 1988.

In 1989, Kreps returned to White Salmon. He got the job as the Bruin girls basketball coach and track and field coach. In 1992, Kreps became the athletic director, and he had the dual role as a coach and AD, which he continued for 30 years. Kreps coached the girls basketball team and the Bruin boys and girls track and field teams — on and off — for a total of 33 years.

“I’ve enjoyed my career here immensely and I have a lot of extremely fond memories,” he said. “It seems like the time went by very quickly, but then in some ways, maybe not. Over the years, I’ve met a lot of great people at White Salmon, including all the coaches.

“I’ve coached a lot of kids here, too, and that’s been lots of fun. I’ve done a lot of good things at White Salmon, and I’ve helped develop a lot of facilities and I’ve spearheaded some big improvements.”

During his tenure at Columbia, Kreps helped expand the athletic program by adding boys and girls soccer and softball, and he also helped get a new asphalt track built at the school. More recently, Kreps was instrumental in the planning and construction of the school district’s new multi-purpose, 80-foot-by-100-foot two-story fieldhouse with two basketball courts.

“I would have to say that there’s probably not many 1A schools that have a fieldhouse as nice as ours that I’m aware of — it’s really pretty cool,” said Kreps of the year-old facility. “It was a vision that we had about 10 years ago, and it finally became a reality.”

Columbia’s new athletic director is AJ Valencia, 27, who was formerly an associate AD for two years at Lincoln High School in Portland.

“When I got the AD job at White Salmon, I was young and I had a lot of energy, but I just don’t have the energy that I used to have,” said Kreps. “I had some pretty good seasons and I’ve had some struggling seasons, like everybody else. Things sometimes worked out pretty well and sometimes they didn’t.

“I still talk to kids that I met who were on teams that I coached 35 to 40 years ago and that’s kind of fun. I’ve actually had opportunities to coach the children of players who I coached a long time ago, so that’s kind of exciting.”

Kreps’ son Aaron is a Columbia High graduate and Howard had the opportunity to coach him on the Bruin track and field team when he was in school. Aaron, who has three children, is the owner of Artistic Excavation in White Salmon and Hood River. Howard says he’s looking forward to spending more time visiting with his three grandchildren and he’ll have an opportunity to do that more often now that he’s retired.

Kreps said that he is grateful to his wife and son for all the support that they gave him throughout his career. Kreps said he also wanted to say “thank you” to all the coaches, administration, and staff members at Columbia High for their support as well.

“I’m at the point in my life where I’m ready to retire,” Kreps said. “I feel pretty good about the things that I’ve accomplished and now it’s time to let somebody else do those things.”