Conrad Stinson

Conrad Stinson died Saturday in Evansville at the age of 94.
Stinson was a Winslow High School alumnus, class of '49, who enlisted in the Air Force and served in the postwar occupation of Germany at Wiesbaden.
While in Europe he went to two Stan Kenton concerts and became a lifelong jazz fan, eventually met pianist Peter Nero and often bragged on his cousin, pianist Jerry Stinson, another Winslow alumnus.
Stinson also attended inter-service baseball games in Germany to see Winslow alumnus Warren Tooley pitch for the Army.
Stinson returned home after the military to marry his high school sweetheart Donna Frances Potter of Muren. Three Potter sisters married boys from Arthur: Kay married Jim Klipsch, June married Richard Clark, and Donna married Conrad.
Three children ensued: Bart, Christia and Mitchell, who eventually wrote "Eskimo Fever" about Winslow basketball glory.
Conrad graduated from Oakland City College and car-pooled with in-law auntie Louise Burns to his first teaching job in Elberfeld. He later taught and coached at Francisco, and worked summers at the Potter & Brumfield factory in nearby Princeton, which was booming in those days.
He taught in Washington, Illinois and Kentucky before moving overseas to the Guam school system where he had a 27-year career. For most of that time, he served as the elected president of the Guam Federation of Teachers, and life outside the classroom was a whir of grievances, shop steward training, board meetings and legislative wheeling and dealing.
He was cut out for it, and there was considerable skepticism that he could walk away from it to a serene retirement. But he had a great on/off switch and in due time, back in southern Indiana, doting on great-granddaughters, he knew the names of all the Teletubbies, and to the astonishment of some family, he got baptized and served on his church's board.
He learned golf to socialize with old high school buddies. He was a regular at the Winslow alumni monthly lunches in Evansville, and drove his trash all the way to the Pike County landfill so he could breakfast at Leighty's hardware store in Arthur.
Family who rode shotgun in the truck with him through Arthur always got the same tour: the #2 Pit where his dad (Bart) caught his first bass, the barn where Charlie Cash shod horses, and the empty lot where "Ma's place," his grandmother's sprawling boardinghouse once stood, where his mom (Etolia) was raised.
These provided the gallery for his older brother Gerald's tapestry of stories that are retold among younger Stinson's, this diaspora.
There will be a visitation at Lamb Basham Memorial Chapel in Oakland City on Friday December 12, 2025, from 10:00 AM to 12:00 PM. The service will start at 12:00 PM, a eulogy and Conrad Stinson will be buried at Montgomery Cemetery. There will be a military walk through at the funeral home at the start of the service with military honors taking place at the cemetery. And then we'll meet and eat and re-tell the precious stories, all that's left, at the enclosed shelter in Wirth Park, scene of so many family reunions and Sweet Corn Festivals.
Even if you just can't bear funerals and cemeteries, come to the park shelter afterwards and join us in a more light-hearted celebration of your friend.