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Richard Adsit Stenard November 9, 1942 - August 12, 1999
Richard Adsit Stenard, 55, of Boise, Idaho, a native of Batavia, died Thursday (Aug. 12, 1999) at a Boise hospital, as the result of a head injury sustained in a fall while painting his La Grande home.
Mr. Stenard was born in Batavia, a son of Doris Stenard Rodehaver of Ocala, Fla., and the late Walter Stenard.
For the last 12 years, he had served as vice president of student affairs at Eastern Oregon University. Before coming to La Grande, he worked at the University of Alaska at Fairbanks and at Geneseo State College. In addition to being an EOU Mountaineer fan, he was active in many charitable groups and professional organizations, including NASPA. He was chosen Union County's Volunteer of the Year in 1996. He was an avid fly fisherman, outdoorsman and gardener.
Surviving with his mother are his wife of 31 years, Cynthia Stenard, who is director of the Grande Ronde Child Care Center; two daughters, Ellen Stenard, a musician in Chicago, and Karen Stenard, a Eugene attorney; a sister, Linda Crummett of Billings Mont.; and one grandson.
There are no calling hours. A memorial service will be at 3 p.m. Wednesday at Loso Hall on the Eastern Oregon University campus. In lieu of flowers, memorials may be made to the Union County United Way or to the Eastern Oregon University Foundation.
As stated on the NASPA (National Association of Student Personnel Administrators in Higher Education) web site, as pointed out by Jim Hottois:
Richard Stenard of Eastern Oregon Univeristy was posthumously awarded the 1999 NASPA Scott Goodnight Award.
These recipients represented Region V for the prestigious national award conferred annually to a dean who has made exemplary contributions to the student affairs profession. The recipients were evaluated on the basis of these criteria:
- sustained professional service in student affairs
- high level competence in administrative skill
- merited stature among and support of students, faculty, and fellow administrators on the campus served
- innovative response in meeting varied and emerging needs of a campus
- effectiveness in the development of junior staff members
- significant contributions to the field through publication of professional involvement; and
- leadership in university and community affairs.
Thanks to Jim Hottois for responding to a request for picture of Dick Stenard...
Cindy and Richard Stenard, 1985
Per an idea "hatched" by Dick Stenard we have the Blues Brothers aka Jim Hottois and Dick (complete with life jackets under their shirts and event-appropriate fish ties) about to leave on a raft down the Grande Rhonde River as part of a “raft race” which is a rite-of-spring event at Eastern Oregon University every year.
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James Hottois
Dick and I grew up living across the street from each other on Montclair Avenue. After graduating from BHS, we both attended Albany State. While there we went our seperate ways. Remarkably about 20 years later we were seated together at a formal banquet hosted by the Army at Fort Lewis. One thing led to another and a couple years later Dick became the Dean of Student Affairs at the Eastern Oregon State College (now Eastern Oregon University) where I was Dean of Academic Affairs. We also came to live on the same street again and our eldest children attended the University of Oregon much as Dick and I attended Albany together. I had left Eastern Oregon a year or so before Dick's untimely death but was honored to be involved with the incredible memorial service which was held for Dick in the College's auditorium where all 400 seats were filled. Dick was passionate about his profession, he was justly proud of his two daughters, he was truly in love with Cindy, he could never get enough fly fishing, and he gave a tremendous amount to the little town where we lived in Oregon. I very much miss the man who was the closest thing to a brother that I ever had.
Jim Hottois
Jim Minor
The following was forwarded to me by Sandy Sterling Weiler. She obtained a copy of these comments read by Jim Hottois from the memorial service for Rich held at Eastern Oregon University. Used by permission from Jim Hottois.
DICK AS A FRIEND
Everyone here knew Dick the man. Only a few of us here were lucky enough to know Rich the boy in Batavia, New York---going to Sunday School at the First Baptist Church; surviving Mrs. Hutchinson's fifth grade at Robert Morris School; playing pickup basketball in Steiner's driveway in the winter; playing baseball with Jim, John, Junior and anyone else we could find in a vacant lot in the summer; sledding at the State Park; Cub Scout Pack 110 where our moms shared Den Mother duties; Boy Scout Troop Five where Walt Stenard was the Scoutmaster; going off across town to Batavia Junior/Senior High School; proving that we were truly grown up by starting to smoke in the eighth grade and of course being so smart and cunning that our mothers didn't know it; after school jobs and a remarkable job we each had at different times shoveling snow off what had to be the longest most uneven sidewalk in Batavia. In the fall of 1961 we went off to Albany State full of expectations and trepidation; we discovered Albany's cultural highpoints---Yezies, O'Heanie's and The Washington Tavern; we joined fraternities---Rich's tenacious and successful pursuit of membership in Kappa Beta was widely remarked about on campus; we protested the imposition of tuition by the state legislature---a protest which Rich organized, by the way; we discovered our careers---a career which became Rich's life work; and finally we graduated.
As I think about Rich's youth, which certainly didn't seem very remarkable at the time, I wonder what in it made Dick such a remarkable man. I cannot think of any one thing except a couple of truly remarkable parents who Dick both respected and loved deeply---Walt and Doris.
Doris, I'll bet that Dick and Walt are together right now and that they've probably gone fishing.
What I can also see are some of the qualities that so many of us knew in Dick either developing or already there in Rich.
I want to talk about one of those qualities in particular. When it came to friends, Dick was thoughtful, he was caring, and he was committed. Friendship involved commitment and Dick was always there for his friends when it counted most. I want to share one such experience with you from the Rich and Jimmy era. As most of you probably know, the formal joining in the Baptist Church involves baptism by immersion. As luck would have it, one of us, and it wasn't Rich, broke his leg trying to ski at our Boy Scout Troop's winter campout a month or so before our class was to be baptized. Now, baptism by immersion with a full plaster cast on one's leg just wasn't going to work. Rich, my friend, put off his own baptism to join me later on. I cannot think of a more meaningful act of friendship than what Rich did then. I can tell you that there were many, many times later on when Dick was there for me in similar ways. And, I'll bet that everyone here can recall Dick's being there for them when they really needed someone.
I want to share some other thoughts about my friend Dick because, as many of you know, through a remarkable set of circumstances Dick and I became colleagues here at EOU and neighbors here in La Grande a dozen years ago.
Dick was a man full of pride. He was most proud of his family.
Cindy, I have never seen a man love a woman as much as Dick loved you. I have also never known a man who was as proud and respectful of his wife as Dick was of you. Those of us who were close to Dick could see that he was not complete without you.
Karen and Ellen, your Dad was proud of everything you did and everything you both are. In the last few years your Dad and I interacted mostly by telephone. Most of those phone calls ended with the latest news about you two and, of course, most recently about Jake's growing up. I need to mention someone else here too. Mark, it would be sort of scary marrying one of Dick's daughters. Dick was as proud of you as he was of Karen and Ellen. He was so very pleased that you and Karen found each other.
Dick was proud of his profession. Dick could be passionate about a lot of things---sometimes maddeningly so. He was consistently passionate about student affairs as a profession. Dick cared about students and knew that he could make a difference in their lives through his profession. After Dick and I worked together for a while, I realized that our disagreements---some of which were monumental---were not unresolved issues from the first grade. We disagreed because I failed to grasp just how much Dick cared about students and about the integrity of his profession. Linda, what I find most remarkable that you and Dick both pursued careers in student services. Dick took great pride in the fact that you had joined him in a profession he cared so passionately for. I want to add another thought here. Mike, Dick was extremely proud of your wonderful photography and that you were a part of his family.
Dick was proud of his own accomplishments as a professional and as a member of his community. I don't mean that in a vain sort of way. We talked about this one day for quite a while. I know that I cannot adequately articulate now what Dick told me then. He wanted to do good and he did good. I know that he would have been very pleased by the Observer's editorial the other day---especially because it reflected the dignity which was so much a part of his own style and the integrity which was so important to him.
Speaking of the Observer, Dick was a man with a quick wit and an always positive sense of humor. Only two or three people know that Dick actually came up with the idea for The Distributer, the spoof of the La Grande Observer which Jim Petersen put out for a couple years.
Rich, the ordinary guy in the front row of the ordinary grade school photos became Dick, the extraordinary man with a life so worthy of celebration. Each of us here today is very much the better because of him. I feel so very grateful to have known him and so very thankful and honored to have had Rich the boy and Dick the man as a friend. I miss him terribly.
Jim Minor
A Dan Winegar column, sometime after 1987, in the Batavia Daily News...