Alumni Spotlight – Dick Stoner ‘57

There are few decades more distinctive and ripe with nostalgia than the fifties. The Class of 1957 remembers their year as a time when Tang, Velcro, the Frisbee, and American Bandstand first appeared. Leave it to Beaver was America’s top rated T.V. show and The Sound of Music was on Broadway. As is often said, “It was a simpler time.”

But 1957 was also part of a turbulent period in American history. The country had just emerged from the McCarthy era, and “cold war” was the catch phrase of the day. Tensions heightened when the Russians launched Sputnik and, with it the race to space. A fleet of U.S. military jets made the first non-stop flight around the world and a young John Glenn set the air speed record by flying across the United States in 3 hours and 23 minutes. B-52s were in the air full-time in a constant state of attack readiness, and Americans were encouraged to build fallout shelters.

It was in this context – the age of air power – that Dick Stoner graduated from SHS in 1957 and joined the U.S. Air Force, beginning a career that took him from Airman to Master Sergeant through 20 years of honorable service to his country.

Dick recalls his most memorable assignment to be the three years he spent in Germany as a radar maintenance technician and part of NATO’s response to the Iron Curtain. He also served a tour in Thailand supporting bombing runs into Vietnam, a campaign now referred to as “America’s Secret War.” He finished his career at the McConnell Air Force Base in Kansas in a wing of the Strategic Air Command dedicated to maintaining global air presence.

After his honorable discharge, Dick began a second career as a production control supervisor for a local concrete company. And he took the opportunity to complete what he says he wished he had immediately done after graduating from Susquehannock; he received a college degree.

Dick came from a family of 13 children and grew up on a farm in Shrewsbury Township. A college education was not a viable option for an eighteen-year old in his circumstances, but it was a dream. Whenever his Air Force billet allowed, he took a course at a local college, and after twenty years he found himself only forty two credit-hours away from a diploma.

He graduated from Wichita State University in 1987 with a Bachelor’s degree in Industrial Technology, having the honor of walking with his youngest daughter Jennifer, who graduated from the University that same year with a degree in Speech and Language Pathology. Dick’s oldest daughter, Diana had graduated a few years before him with an engineering degree. And with his new degree, Dick went to work for Beechcraft Aircraft Company as supervisor of the sheet metal shop.

Mary (Kelbaugh) Stoner, Class of 1960, was a part of Dick’s life journey. She graduated from Wichita State in 1977 and also had multiple careers, one as an elementary school teacher and one as marketing agent with Aetna Life & Casualty.

When the time came for retirement, Dick and Mary decided to return to York County. “There are four seasons here,” Dick says. “And I have 11 brothers and sisters in the area.” The couple lives their retirement with the same energy as they lived their careers. In his retirement he is an avid gardener, woodworker, golfer, and traveler. He has visited every continental U.S. state in their RV except for Rhode Island (which he plans to visit soon). And he has found time to serve as President of the Class of 1957 alumni committee.

Dick keeps an ongoing chronicle of his adventures on the Internet and invites his friends to visit him on Facebook™.

Thanks to Dick Stoner, Class of 1957, for making us Warrior Proud.