PATRICK'S PEOPLE: Becky Stahl will retire from the Family Resource Center

After a career dedicated to helping young children, Becky Stahl will retire from the Family Resource Center on Thursday.
It has been a long journey since that day in 1997 when Monica Murnan contacted her about starting the FRC.

“I’ve been in education for 36 years, and that the time they were starting the Center I was an early years teacher at Eugene Field Elementary School,” Stahl said. “That summer of 1997 they closed Eugene Field and Lincoln Elementary Schools, so I went back to Lakeside Elementary School. Then I got a call from Monica, who asked if I wanted to jump off a bridge with her. I said yes.”
The Center opened in August 1997 in the former Lincoln School.

“We were the only two employees until three days before it opened,” Stahl said. “We kind of pulled it together.”

Director of early childhood services, she was technically employed by Pittsburg USD 250.

“At the start I did everything on hiring staff members and development of the staff,” Stahl said.

The staff grew to include about 90 people, and for a long time Stahl was in charge of making out their work schedules.

“A lot of the employees are college students, so we had to change schedules every semester based on when they were available to work. It got to be like a big puzzle that had to be put together.”

Family Resource Center has been accredited three times through the National Association for the Education of Young Children, and it was Stahl’s job to go through that process. This involved self-study that took a year and preparations for a visit by an NAEYC accreditation team.

She has also been in charge of licensing, making sure the facility was in compliance with all relevant State of Kansas regulations.
Some of Stahl’s other duties were a little more unusual, including climbing on the roof of the old Family Resource Center to clean out the soffits and helping Murnan eject pigeons from the gymnasium.

“We’d flap lunch trays and chase them until they got tired, then we could pick  them up with the net and take them out,” Murnan explained.

Stahl recalled the time when a part of the gymnasium floor fell in during an adult education graduation ceremony.

“Monica was on vacation and we didn’t want to call and tell her,” she said. “Eventually we decided we had to.”

In August 2009 Stahl helped coordinate the Center’s move to its current home at 1600 N. Walnut.

Stahl grew up in Pittsburg and later lived for a time in Athens, Ga., and San Diego.

“I took some time off when my sons were little, then we came back to Pittsburg,” she said. “I was children’s librarian at the Pittsburg Public Library, then for 18 years I ran the Building Blocks Preschool at the Presbyterian Church.”

Now she’s looking forward to the next phase of her life, but admits there’s also some sadness.

“The Family Resource Center has grown into such an amazing organization,” Stahl said. “I’m really very proud of my part in helping create the center. I can always look back and say that I was a part of it.”

She added that she will really miss working with Murnan, who is also leaving the Center to take a position at the Southeast Kansas Education Service Center in Greenbush.

“We each have different strengths,” Stahl said. “That’s why we work together so well.”

Now she and her husband, retired music educator Bob Stahl, would like to just enjoy spending time together.

“The staff here at the Center has been giving me a gift every day, and today the gift was bells for my husband and me, so we can keep track of each other in stores,” Stahl said.

She added that they hope to do some traveling.

“We expect a new granddaughter in August, and she’ll be born in Aspen, Colo.,” Stahl said. “We have a number of grandchildren, and we’ll probably make the rounds and visit family. I’ll finally have some time to read the books I haven’t had time to read before. And, sooner or later, we’ll probably do some volunteer work to give back to the community.”