UNIVERSITY OF NEBRASKA AT KEARNEY ALUMNI
FOREVER A LOPER
WE WANT TO HEAR FROM YOU!
Alumni are making an impact in their communities every single day. Please share those stories with us at lopers@unkalumni.org. LOPER ALUMNI SPOTLIGHT by Heather Stauffer
Helen (Winter) Stauffer '64, MSE '68
led an extraordinary life with a vibrant career. In 1943, Helen became one of the nearly 70,000 women to enlist in the Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service (WAVES) during World War II, teaching aerial gunnery at Naval Air Station Alameda in California. In 1944, Helen married Mike Stauffer and they lived in San Francisco for the remainder of the war before moving to Nebraska. When her youngest daughter, Melody, started kindergarten in 1962, Helen enrolled in classes at Kearney State College. She shared her educational milestones with her children. She graduated with a bachelor’s degree from Kearney State College in 1964, the same year her oldest daughter graduated from high school. While continuing with classes, she taught at Grand Island High School from 1964-1967. She completed her master’s degree in English from Kearney State College in 1968, the same year her son graduated high school. She began her career as an English professor at KSC in 1968, all the while continuing her graduate studies. In 1974, the Stauffers not only celebrated Melody’s graduation from high school, but also Helen’s completion of her Ph.D. in English literature from the University of Nebraska–Lincoln. Helen is the author of the most comprehensive biography of the Nebraska author Mari Sandoz, “Mari Sandoz: Story Catcher of the Plains” (1982), and editor of a book of correspondences, “Letters of Mari Sandoz” (1992). Helen served on the board of directors of the Great Plants Chautauqua; Nebraska Humanities Council; Sandoz Heritage Society; and Western Literature Association, which she also served as president. She was a member of the Willa Cather Foundation, Modern Language Association and National Education Association, among others. She became professor emerita at KSC in 1990. She and Mike traveled the globe, and Helen never lost her love of reading. Her husband died in 2014, the year of their 70th wedding anniversary. Helen moved to Lincoln in 2016, bringing along hundreds of her favorite books, which she sometimes referred to as “friends.” Helen died on Nov. 21, 2019, at the age of 97.
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UNK TODAY
