I recently had coffee with a journalist who writes for a national publication so huge, it felt like I was hanging out with a celebrity. Their parting advice to me as a community news editor was to include more personal info to help relate to my audience.

So I have taken this advice to the extreme and written about one of the most private, personal topics I could think of, my late father. I’m not sure this is what the important journalist had in mind, but today is my father’s birthday and something told me it was time to write this. 

Starting at the End

On the day of my father’s funeral in October 2002, I stood in the back of the church greeting people. I had just greeted more than 600 people the night before. But we were doing it one final time before the service.

A woman I had known casually for years arrived and asked me to confirm that I was about the same age as her children. We exchanged the normal “pleasantries” that you do at a funeral. And then she paused and said, “I was 28 when my Dad died.” And I remember thinking how sad it was that she was so young when she lost her father. And later it dawned on me that she had been calculating my age based off her kids, because, I remembered, I was also 28.

Quiet Hero

Gene Stebbins was supposed to be a plumber like his father and his father. He wanted to be the first of his family to go to college. In the midst of that debate with his parents, he got drafted. He went to Vietnam, was injured, got to see Japan and Australia while he recovered and came home with a boomerang—that’s all we kids ever knew about it.

We will never know if the chemicals he was exposed to in the military caused the cancer that killed him, but most people in his family, including his own father, lived to be in their 90s.

It wasn’t until his funeral that, at his final request, the Bronze Star Medal with Valor, the Army Commendation Medal with Valor and the Purple Heart were brought out of the box in the back of his closet. The descriptions of his heroism written by the Army were on display for the first time ever—I was given copies to keep that I didn’t read for many years.

Gene Stebbins attended Miami University on the GI Bill, married my mother, built a house and had three kids.

True to the Team

There is a quiet sub-culture of Baby Boomers who live in Farmersville and Germantown. They all know each other from their shared high school experience as Jefferson Broncos. Many of these transplants are now the biggest Spartan fans in the community—just like my parents.

Before my siblings and I were even in Junior High, my father never missed a Spartan football game—home or away. He attended nearly all of the boys basketball games and supported the girls team when they made their historic run in the late 80s.

Years of Service

In 1985, there were three seats open on the Valley View Board of Education and only two people who had filed to be on the ballot. Dad ran as a write-in. He recruited friends to help stand at the polls and hand out little pencils with “Use this to write in Gene Stebbins for School Board” written on the side. He beat out three other write-ins to win.

 Some of the things that my father cared about deeply came together in his 16-years on the board. He was passionate about Spartan sports and also musical performance. He greatly supported higher education and was deeply devoted to 4-H, FFA and the county fair.

Those of us who are 4-H alumni in GenX owe a debt to my father for the “fair days” we got off before Labor Day during the old fair schedule.

Upon his death, our family raised $3,000 that was given to the school for elementary field trips, writing programs, scholarships, choir materials and the National Honor Society. The Gene Stebbins Memorial Scholarship provided more than $10,000 in additional scholarships in the following years.  

Final Accolades

My father’s death was front-page news in The Germantown Press and he received touching tributes from two people who have been my inspiration in starting this publication. Editor Boo Izor wrote about the church service and visitation as if she had been there—and she probably was. She opened with, “On Monday’s crisp autumn morning, under stunning blue skies and a canopy of autumn colors and surrounded by freshly-harvested farm fields, Eugene Stebbins’ friends and family took him to rest in a country setting that reflected the life he lived.”

Editor emeritus of The Press, Delores Grunwald came out of retirement to pen an opinion piece noting how they often “butted heads” but how they also shared mutual respect. She noted his campaign to update the school calendar to support fair kids saying, “He was not only clever and magical, he was tenacious and dedicated to task.”

Her final observation has stayed with me all these years, “He was a true Spartan, with a Germantown address and a Farmersville phone number!”

 In our Hearts

We keep his memory alive by telling the now funny stories of how he was always managing to injure himself and piece his thumb, head, heel and even rear end back together with butterfly bandages. And we share how much he loved bringing the family together at our annual reunion.

Gene Stebbins was a suit-wearing businessman by day and a farmer by night. He believed you had no business complaining about your preacher if you weren’t willing to serve on the selection committee. He loved flip-flops WAY before they were trendy. If he liked you, he would invite you to go boating on Lake Cumberland. He only traveled places he could take his RV.

And his biggest regret was that he wasn’t going to live to play with his grandchildren—and he would be so proud of what they have become.

Happy Birthday, Dad
April 22, 1948 – October 18, 2002

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