COEUR d'ALENE - Marv Lekstrum, a Lakes Highway District commissioner and longtime resident of North Idaho, died Sunday, his family confirmed. He was 79.

Lekstrum was first elected to the Highway District in 2007, and was re-elected last year. He also was active with the local Republican party.

Daughter Tamara Lekstrum, of Vancouver, British Columbia, said Monday, "He liked to live a purposeful life. He was dedicated. He also was a wonderfully patient and evenly tempered dad."

His is survived by a second daughter, Valarie Hoover, a resident of southern California.

Rod Twete, a fellow district commissioner, said, "(Lekstrum) was very well versed in business. And he wanted to do the best thing possible for the public."

Twete said Lekstrum was easy to work with.

"Everybody loved him," Twete said. "It's going to be hard to fill his shoes."

Along with his service on the commission, he spent part of his retirement as a popular substitute teacher at Coeur d'Alene Charter Academy and for School District 271.

Tamara Lekstrum said, "He loved teaching science and math."

He moved to North Idaho in the early 1980s, she said.

He was fun-loving and enjoyed traveling, she said.

He is originally from Twentynine Palms, Calif. His parents were homesteaders in the Mojave Desert, his daughter said.

Lekstrum earned a bachelor's degree in physics from the Virginia Military Institute in Lexington, Va. Earlier, he earned a full scholarship to Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he attended school for a time before ending up at VMI, she said.

After school, he served as a captain in the U.S. Air Force, and worked as an engineer at NASA.

He went on to work for telecommunications companies as an engineer and manager.

He worked as vice president of international operations at ISC Systems Corp., in Spokane, and has helped develop software for large computer systems.

He retired in the mid 1990s.

He was married twice, with his first wife, Peggy Lekstrum, dying in 1995. His second wife, Shirley Lawson, died in 2008.

A funeral service will be conducted at 9 a.m. Thursday at the Coeur d'Alene Church of the Nazarene, at 4000 N. Fourth St.