Heaven gained a mighty angel of fun and laughter, but Donley County lost one of its greatest citizens when Jean Stavenhagen passed away last Thursday.
Mrs. Stave’s good works are almost too numerous to list. Her devotion to education as a teacher and librarian at Clarendon High School and her impact on generations of students comprise an enormous legacy. Add to that her work with the Saints’ Roost Museum and the Donley County Historical Commission, and you begin to get a clearer picture of what she meant to our community.
For me, Mrs. Stave was someone that I suppose I have known or been acquainted with for my entire life. She and my mother were friends and colleagues with their careers in education overlapping at Clarendon CISD. She and Mom worked on their master’s degrees at the same time at West Texas State University and carpooled to classes together some.
About the time I entered high school, Mrs. Stave stepped away from her teacher’s desk and into her role as librarian. She was fun to be around, had a clear passion for the library, and, along with Kay Hayes, was one of those people at Clarendon High School who expected you to do nothing but your best.
She was a constant presence at our UIL academic competitions; and while I was never in the contests that she coached, I was often nearby and enjoyed the interaction between her and Mrs. Hayes. Together, they were a force to be reckoned with. They held high standards, but they also knew how to have fun.
My senior year I was less than happy to discover my schedule had me in a home economics class. I mentioned it to Mrs. Stave and in short order she had Valorie Ashcraft change my schedule to let me be one of her library aides. She put me and Stacy Graham to work an hour a day. We shelved a lot of books, cataloged a lot of periodicals, and, as you might imagine, had a lot of fun. You wouldn’t think laughter and libraries go together, but they did then.
It was probably there that my friendship with Mrs. Stave really began. She had decades of Clarendon newspapers on microfilm, which I found captivating for the local history they contained. She would let me peruse those archives when I had time… even after I graduated and was going to Clarendon College.
My time as an aide started just a couple of months after the Rev. Jesse Jackson had spoken at the 1988 Democratic Convention. I’m not sure how the subject even came up, but Mrs. Stave and I were both taken with Jackson’s phrase, “Keep hope alive!” It got to be a daily thing with us. Instead of “hello,” we would great each other with “Keep hope alive!” And so it went through my senior year and even when I would visit the library as an alumnus.
Five years after I became publisher, Mrs. Stave retired and threw herself fully into preserving Donley County’s history. The first project we worked on together was the restoration of the 1890 Courthouse. There were a few key people that made that happen, and certainly Jean Stavenhagen was one of them.
Other projects came through the years. My phone would ring. “Clarendon Enterprise,” I would answer and then hear “Keep hope alive!” It was Mrs. Stave, working on this or that and needing my help, which I always freely and gladly gave. I would have walked through fire for that woman, and I think she would have done the same for me.
Sometimes the roles were reversed. I’d call, she’d answer “hello,” and I would respond with “Keep hope alive!” And then I would set her off on some research trail for me.
She loved this paper. Next to my parents, I think Mrs. Stave might have been one of my biggest supporters or at least I always felt that way. She appreciated the role of the paper in preserving Donley County’s history. She often helped us compile information for our annual Pioneer Edition and even suggested the theme for those editions on a few occasions. She was a great help getting our historical marker in time for our 125th anniversary. And when we found the first editions of our paper from 1878, Mrs. Stave was my second phone call after my Mom. When those papers finally arrived back home, she was quick to get to the office to see them.
Mrs. Stave… it is impossible to imagine doing this job without her. Especially after the loss of my Mom, it was always comforting to be able to turn to her for a friendly ear or a research partner. Whether it was something for the Mulkey or the Museum or securing a historical marker for St. Stephen’s Baptist Church, I could count on Mrs. Stave. Because of her, it was possible for Texas Tech to digitize the archives of the Panhandle’s first newspaper. Because of her so much history has been saved and documented.
There were still projects Mrs. Stave wanted to do, and I wanted to help her do them. But she is gone now to her great reward, and we are left to carry on her memory as students and friends. We loved her dearly, but she would not want us to spend our time mourning. She would want us laughing and doing our best at whatever tasks are set before us; and even in this sorrowful time, she would say, “Keep hope alive!”
Godspeed, Mrs. Stave, and thank you.
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