Harry Stephenson, former student, coach, teacher, and administrator with 63-year legacy at Transylvania University, dies
LEXINGTON, Ky.—Harry Stephenson, whose relationship with Transylvania University as student, coach, teacher and administrator totaled a remarkable 63 years, died May 15 in Lexington. He was 95. Stephenson enrolled as a first-year student at Transylvania in the fall of 1936. His association with the university was interrupted by military service during World War II, a year earning a master’s degree after the war, and another year of high school teaching. He joined Transylvania’s faculty and staff in 1948, and when he retired in 2006 had achieved a 58-year employment tenure at his alma mater that became a 63-year association when his student days were added on. “Transylvania has lost a leading member of its family with the passing of Harry Stephenson,” said President R. Owen Williams. “There have been few people in the long history of this institution in whose hearts the spirit of Transylvania burned so brightly.” “Harry Stephenson was the epitome of an educator,” said athletics director Jack Ebel, a 1977 graduate of the university. “Countless Transylvania students and athletes developed lifelong relationships with Harry through his dedication to mentoring young people. Harry was an exceptional friend to the university whose commitment began 76 years ago when he came here as a student.” Stephenson’s Transylvania studies were sidelined by his service as a crew chief and engineer on a C-47 troop carrier with the U.S. Army Air Corps from 1942-45. He had played professional baseball with the St.