Richard Wayne Stahl, Sr., 86 years old, passed away on July 22, 2024 in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. He was born June 22, 1938 to Howard Trapp Stahl and Pauline (Robinson) Stahl in Allentown, Pennsylvania. He married Rita "LaNell" Stahl on July 3, 1964 in Bethany, Oklahoma.

Richard, affectionately known as Rick, retired in 2005 from the Arizona Department of Corrections as Supervisor of Education for the Arizona Prison Units in Winslow, Arizona and St. John's, Arizona. He spent 38 years as an educator. His first teaching job was for the U.S. Department of the Interior, Bureau of Indian Affairs, on the Navajo Nation. He was an elementary school teacher at Kayenta Boarding School in Kayenta, Arizona (the most remote post office in the United States), and then an elementary school principal-teacher at Pine Springs Boarding School, located on seventeen miles of dirt road in Pine Springs, Arizona. Following that, he was Director of Curriculum and Instruction, as well as Personnel Director, for Ganado Public School in Ganado, Arizona. Richard continued to broaden his experience as an educator when he became assistant principal of Thoreau Junior – Senior High School in Thoreau, New Mexico. He left the Navajo Nation after that and went to Delmar, Delaware where he was principal of Delmar Junior Senior High School in his mother's home town. After eleven years in Delaware, he returned to Arizona and became an educator for the Arizona Department of Corrections. He loved teaching and being in education. His greatest joy was seeing his students learn and make progress.

Richard was a proud United States Army veteran who served from 1960 – 1963 and received an honorable discharge.

Rick was a man of integrity and a devout Christian who was known for his love of helping others, having fun wherever he went, and having a smile for anyone he encountered. Brilliant and talented, he was comfortable in the academic world, as well as playing with his nieces and nephews. He was a musician who played the piano and organ, arranged music for LaNell's trio, and played the bass saxophone in high school and the tenor saxophone in college. He played piano duets with his daughter and saxophone duets with his son. Having fallen in love with the southwest when he read Zane Grey novels as a teenager, he thoroughly enjoyed his years in Arizona and New Mexico which afforded him opportunities to hunt, fish, hike the Grand Canyon, and explore the sunsets and scenery he captured with his camera.

The anchor of who Rick was came from his religious upbringing as a child. He enjoyed boys' camp each summer at North East Nazarene Camp in North East, Maryland. He attended Eastern Nazarene College in Quincy, Massachusetts before joining the Army. After his three years in the Army and receiving an honorable discharge, he enrolled at Bethany Nazarene College which is now Southern Nazarene University in Bethany, Oklahoma, where he completed his bachelor's degree in history.

Richard served the Church of the Nazarene denomination through teaching senior high and children's Sunday School classes, serving on church boards, ushering, singing in the choir, playing the piano for services, and writing English as a Second Language Sunday school materials which were used with refugees, with the deaf, and in prisons. After retirement, he volunteered to teach reading to children in a neighborhood program sponsored by the Oklahoma City First Church of the Nazarene.

Richard earned a master's degree in Education from Northern Arizona University. He was a member of the Kiwanis Club in Delmar, Delaware, the Westerners International Club in Flagstaff, AZ and the Oklahoma Chisholm Corral in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. He will be remembered for his presentations about the life of Walter Prescott Webb (a famous Texas historian), the Harvey Houses, and the Harvey Girls. He was a member of the Academy of Senior Professionals at Southern Nazarene University.

Richard was preceded in death by his parents; and his two older brothers, Benjamin Robinson Stahl of Hudson, Massachusetts and Reverend Ralph Donald Stahl of Lake Placid, New York.

He is survived by LaNell, his wife of sixty years; son, Richard Wayne Stahl, Jr. (Carol) of Brockton, Massachusetts; daughter, Reverend Representative Stephanie Stahl Hamilton (Derek) of Tucson, Arizona; eight grandchildren, Aaron Stahl (Katherine) of West Bridgewater, Massachusetts; Rebekah Stahl-Bryant (Conner) of Quincy, Massachusetts; Jonathan Stahl, Nathanael Stahl, and Samuel Stahl of Brockton, Massachusetts; Aidan Hamilton, Gavin Hamilton, and Kiera Hamilton from Tucson, Arizona; and many nieces, nephews and great-nieces and great-nephews in Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, California, Massachusetts, and Hawaii. He will be greatly missed by friends and family across the United States.

Richard's funeral service will be Wednesday, August 14, beginning with a video at 12:30 p.m. and the service at 1 p.m. Private family burial will follow. The service will be livestreamed and may be viewed on this obituary page.

In lieu of flowers, memorial donations may be made to ONE (Our Neighborhood Empowered), an after-school literacy program for children, at OKC First Church of the Nazarene, 4400 N W Expressway, Oklahoma City, OK 73116.