Remembering former university president Bill Stacy's time with SEMO

Former Southeast Missouri State University president Bill Stacy died at the age of 85 on Thursday, Jan. 4.

The president served the university from 1979 to 1989, with many of his actions laying the foundation for present fixtures of the college. Stacy's journey at SEMO started as a student, then professor in the school's speech department, dean of graduate studies and, finally, university president.

Stacy's work as president helped bring about the construction of the Show Me Center, as well as creation of the Southeast Missouri University Foundation.

Former SEMO assistant to the president Art Wallhausen said Stacy's work with the Show Me Center and Student Recreation Center were among the most notable in his career. Wallhausen also said Stacy never needed a script on any occasion and he was a great orator.

"He could speak at any occasion with no preparation and come out sounding like a great orator," Wallhausen said. "He could just talk off the cuff and make you think he had studied the issue for years."

In Stacy's time, he also helped transition SEMO's athletics from Division II to Division I. Carroll Williams held coaching positions at the university and taught physical education for 50 years. Williams said Stacy took a big part in talking to various communities about the change.

"A lot of folks thought it was purely an athletic move -- 'We're gonna go because now we would be DI athletics, and we have a bigger stature, etc.' That was not it at all," Williams said. "It was made purely academically because all the other schools that used to be DII -- Arkansas State, Murray, Southern Illinois, schools that we had competed against for decades and in all kinds of athletics -- all those schools had gone Division I."

Williams said he first met Stacy when Stacy was on SEMO's football team while they were both attending college. He said Stacy's standout trait as president and even from when he attended college as a student was that he was always open to trying new things and never stopped learning from other people.

"He was always open to learning something from somebody else," he said. "He'll learn from you, may not use what he learned from you, but he'll be open to learning."

Williams said Stacy wasn't like other administrators he's worked with in this way. He gave an example when SEMO's athletic committee recommended firing a coach after a disappointing season.

He said Stacy wanted to take the pressure off of having to win so the coach could build up a team rather than firing the coach.

"(Stacy said) let's give them long-term contracts so they can build the program that we want to see there," Williams said.

Former speech professor Tom Harte worked alongside Stacy while they were both working in the same department. Harte recalled Stacy as being able to relate to people even after moving up the ladder at the university.

"People, I think, felt he understood them and appreciated them," Harte said. "A lot of people, as I said, in my experience who, once they get up at that level, they do kind of forget about the situations and the concerns of people who they've left behind. But that was never the case with Bill."