Helen Stambaugh, longtime YSU fan, dies at age 92

By Denise Dick

denise_dick@vindy.com

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When the 2011-12 Youngstown State University football season begins this fall, there will be one conspicuously empty seat.

The only reserved seat in the president’s loge at Stambaugh Stadium will be left vacant after the Monday afternoon death of Helen R. Stambaugh, 92, its longtime occupant.

“I think that’s when it will really hit me that Mrs. Stambaugh is gone, when I see that seat empty,” said Paul McFadden, YSU’s chief development officer.

Calling hours are from 5 to 8 p.m. Friday at Anstrom-Velker Funeral Home and from 9 to 10 a.m. at St. John Evangelical Lutheran Church on Mahoning Avenue.

YSU’s stadium was named for Stambaugh’s late husband, Arnold D. Stambaugh, a philanthropist and businessman in hardwood-lumber manufacturing.

McFadden said Mrs. Stambaugh carried on her husband’s philanthropic ways. Her contributions to YSU ran the gamut from the arts to sports.

She established a YSU football scholarship in her husband’s name, provided the lead gift for the university’s Andrews Recreation and Wellness Center, which opened in 2005, and paid for new uniforms for the marching band.

“She volunteered in our business office with SCORE, a small-business advisory committee of retired business people,” McFadden said. “She was on the visiting committee for the College of Fine and Performing Arts.

Besides her good works, McFadden was complimentary of Stambaugh’s intellect.

“She might have been the kindest person I’ve ever met in my life, but she was also very intelligent, particularly when it came to business,” he said.

She worked for about 10 years at Park Vista Retirement Community, including a time as its executive director. She also served as executive director of Shepherd of the Valley in Niles.

Stambaugh also was a great fan of athletics, McFadden said, and attended many YSU sporting events.

Her faithful attendance at home football games led the university to establish her reserve seat in the president’s loge — the only person who had one.

She always sat in the same seat, so the university decided to make it official and posted a sign designating that spot for her.

She was a 1938 graduate of Lowellville High School and a 1944 graduate of Youngstown College.

“I don’t think her alma mater ever left her heart or she was ever disengaged,” McFadden said.