Obituary of Robert James Stansbury

untitled1 Visitation Friday, February 12, 2010 4-8 PM Poling-St. Clair Funeral Home Funeral Service Saturday, February 13, 2010 11 AM First United Methodist Church Burial Stansbury Family Cemetery Robert James Stansbury (Jim) Jim attended Greenbrier Military School and graduated from Charleston (WV) High School in 1944. While in the US Navy he studied at the University of Mississippi. After deciding to enter the ministry, he graduated cum laude in 1948 from West Virginia Wesleyan College with a B.A. in English, and also ministered to a circuit of southern Upshur County churches. In 1951 he earned a Masters of Divinity at Garrett Theological Seminary in Chicago and did post graduate work at the University of Illinois. Following seminary, Jim entered the ministry with the Methodist Church but soon found himself called in a different direction. From 1953-54 he was YMCA Program Secretary in Spray, NC. In 1954 he returned to his alma mater at WVWC, where he served as Director of Alumni Affairs, Assistant to the President, Director of the Campus Community Center and Campus Coordinator, and other positions through 1978. After leaving Wesleyan, Jim was Coordinator of Special Services at Goodwill Industries of Houston Texas from 1978-79. As a fundraising consultant, he was with Ward Dreshman and Reinhardt from 1979-81 in Miami, FL and United Church of Christ in St. Louis 1981-83, but maintained his home in Upshur County. Concurrently, he turned his lifelong interest in photography into a passion, learning to develop, print, and enlarge his own images in a darkroom he built himself. Calling it the Stone Cellar Darkroom, he taught photography classes, held 30 one-person exhibits, and placed in several group art shows with his barn and landscapes through 2000. One highlight of this time was when his photographs of the Gateway Arch in St. Louis were displayed at its visitor center for its 25th anniversary in 1990. Jim sold his barn and landscape pictures to people all over the country.Known for his warmth, charm, humor, intellect, sincerity, and wide range of interests, Jim was devoted to his family and made friends everywhere. Jim loved to travel and maintained a wide circle of close friends and relatives from coast to coast and overseas through frequent visits, phone calls, and emails. A number of these special people attended Jim’s 80th birthday party March 31, 2007 at First United Methodist Church. He was very active until recently with organizations, particularly the Association of College Unions International and West Virginia Conference of the United Methodist Church. Jim was a lifelong do-it-yourselfer and nail bender extraordinaire. Highlights included falling off a second story roof and only breaking a few boards (which he saved as proof), starting a fire in his shop by spontaneous combustion, and installing a steel ladder for Santa Claus in his chimney. On one of Jim’s frequent trips to Home Hardware he would appear to be removing his pants at the cash register, because he had pulled clean trousers over the dirty work pants containing his wallet. In restoring his 100 year old farm house, he built-in cabinets, bookshelves, a triple-decker bunk bed, and a telephone booth, and made furniture from reclaimed wormy chestnut. The family wishes to thank Serenity Care Home for their loving and expert care. Friends will be received Friday, February 10, 2010 from 4:00 to 8:00 p.m. at Poling St. Clair Funeral Home. On Saturday February 13, Jim will be lying in state from 10:00 to 11:00 a.m. at First United Methodist Church in Buckhannon. The funeral service will follow at 11:00 a.m. at the church with the Rev. Damon Rhodes officiating. A graveside service for family only will follow at the family graveyard on Hickory Flat Road.