What a difference a day makes! 
by Bill Jones

“What a difference a day makes . . . twenty-four little hours . . .” sang jazz artist Dinah Washington in the 1960s.

Oh yes, and some days make more of a difference than others.

Some days change the world and enter the popular vernacular as a shorthand code for those changes: July 4 (1776) . . . December 7 (1941) . . . November 22 (1963) . . . September 11 (2001) . . . January 6 (2021).

But some days simply change a life and, like ripples in a stream, other lives touched by – and touching – that life.

July 7, 1962 – 60 years ago today – continues to ripple through my life. On that day, my parents and I left our home in Dallas for a new home in Kansas City, Missouri. We arrived the next evening, July 8. Texas Baptists were no longer able to fund Daddy’s work with the SBC Home Mission Board, and Missouri Baptists picked up the slack. So Daddy left his office at the Dallas Baptist Association for a new office at the Kansas City Baptist Association. Mother left her work with the SBC Annuity Board in Dallas for a position as secretary/church clerk at Bethany Baptist Church in KC.

And me? Well, I had just finished 5th grade at Spring Valley Elementary in the Richardson School District. I was leaving friends behind in both school and church. One of those school friends, Don Dilmore, remains a great friend today, but I ultimately lost touch with the others.

I could have never imagined, though, just how much I would come to love Kansas City. It’s where I grew up. I was 11 when we moved there. By the time I had graduated from Oklahoma Baptist University and spent my final summer in that house – 5032 N. Euclid – I would be 22; my parents would move back to Texas the following year, and my years of living with them were over. Those 11 years, though, were formative in my life, and – though it will be 50 years next summer since I last lived there – I still consider KC, MO, my hometown. It was a wonderful place to grow up. My parents and I came to love Kansas City and its people.

To keep this from becoming a lengthy screed, I’ll bullet-point just a few of the ways Kansas City enriched – and continues to enrich – my life.

• Major league baseball
  • Our second week in KC, Daddy took me to see my first major league baseball game. Our Kansas City A’s were hosting the mighty New York Yankees – the Bronx Bombers who were fresh off the big Maris-Mantle home run battle of 1961. Whitey Ford started for the Yankees that day and, predictably, shut down the A’s, 3-1. Didn’t matter that the A’s had lost. I was hooked on baseball – for life! We had been to a couple of minor league games in Dallas, and they really didn’t do much for me. But THIS – this was the big leagues, Mantle, Ford, Maris, Howard, Richardson, Skowron, Boyer! Thus began a love affair with baseball that continues to this day (though my Texas Rangers are doing everything they can to cool my ardor).
• Richard Lin and Joe Dell Rust
  • When we arrived at Bethany Baptist Church in July 1962, the music minister was Richard Lin, who was a music professor at Oklahoma Baptist University (OBU), taking a leave of absence to study for his doctorate at the UMKC music conservatory in Kansas City. He and his wife, Julia, had immigrated to the US from Hong Kong in 1952. Mother was his secretary. The Lins had three sons and a daughter. Mother loved keeping little Anita with her in the worship services while her daddy was leading the music and her mommy was singing in the choir. I became close friends with the three sons, Richard, Steven, and Joe. On most Sunday afternoons, either they would come home with me or I would go home with them. It was through eating Julia Lin’s cooking at Sunday lunch that I learned to love Chinese food – a love that would come in most handy a decade later when at OBU I met a girl from Hong Kong who was also a wonderful cook. More about that later.
  • In August 1963, the now-Dr. Lin and his family returned to Shawnee, Oklahoma, where he resumed his work at OBU. He was succeeded at Bethany by one of his former students, Joe Dell Rust. That fall, at 12½, I entered Youth Choir. It was through Youth Choir that I fell in love with vocal/choral music, and Joe Rust became both a friend and mentor to me. To this day, I have stayed close to Joe and his wife, Martha, two of the dearest friends I’ve ever known. My life came to revolve around Youth Choir (when I wasn’t poring over baseball stats), and I eventually – probably when I was 14 or 15 – decided God was calling me to be a music minister. (Why I didn’t wind up as a music minister is a story for another day.) Through Joe’s influence, OBU became my first choice. Both he and Dr. Lin served as character references for my application to OBU.
  • My years at OBU have had an outsized influence on my life, and I wouldn’t have wound up there were it not for the influence of Richard Lin and Joe Dell Rust. See how a simple move – like the one we made 60 years ago today – can dramatically change one’s life?
    • It was at OBU that God knocked the props out from under the shallow faith I brought there, starting me on a journey of faith and discovery that continues today, over 50 years later. There I met people who would become great friends to me and whose influence on my life was both profound and lasting – especially Ron Russey, Cary Wood, and Jerry Barnes, but there were others as well.
    • It was at OBU that, as a senior, I met a freshman from Hong Kong, Joanna Wong, who would become the most important person in my life, the love of my life, the one who I can’t write about right now without tears filling my eyes. I’ll be forever grateful that God gave this shy senior, who hadn’t had a date in 3½ years at OBU because he was scared to death of the rejection that he knew would result, the courage to ask her out. For 48 years, her presence enriched . . . enlivened . . . my life, until her kidney disease sapped the life from her body last year, and God took her home. She is still the love of my life, always will be, and I look forward with great anticipation to the day God calls me home and I can embrace her again. But without my decision to attend OBU, I would have never met her (and two kids & four grandkids wouldn’t exist), and without that move to Kansas City and Bethany Baptist Church 60 years ago, I would have never wound up at OBU.
    • Also, if I hadn’t gone to OBU, I wouldn’t have taken a job with Southwestern Bell in Shawnee in 1974, where I met Bob Morris. Discovering that we had both voted for George McGovern (there weren’t many of us in Oklahoma), we quickly became fast friends talking with each other about Watergate after we got off work every night. Two years later, Bob was best man in my wedding to Joanna, and he remains my best friend today, over 48 years since we first met.
• Joyce Stuermer
  • Growing up, I had a chronic confidence deficit (good psychological mumbo-jumbo, don’t you think?). I entered Oak Park High School in the North Kansas City School District as a sophomore in the fall of 1966. A Cappella Choir, directed by Joyce Stuermer, was the premier choral group at Oak Park. It was huge, at least 80 students I would estimate. To get into A Cappella Choir, you had to audition in front of the entire choir. There was no way I had the confidence to do THAT! Instead, I enrolled in the Boys’ Glee Club, which comprised about 10 students. No audition required. I soon learned why. I was the ONLY guy in there who could read music. By this time, I had been taking piano lessons for 7 years and had sung bass in the Youth Choir for 3 years. Miss Stuermer started asking me to try out for A Cappella Choir. I said no. I don’t recall whether I gave her a reason, but I knew the reason – I was scared to death of singing in front of those 80 outstanding singers!
    • My junior year, I didn’t enroll in any music class. However, every time Miss Stuermer would see me in the hallway, she would stop me: “Bill Jones, when are you going to try out for A Cappella?” She wouldn’t let it go. Time and time again, she kept bugging me about it, insisting that I come try out. Finally, near the end of my junior year, I gave in to her relentless entreaties. I don’t remember the try-out . . . I’ve probably blocked it out. Long story short, I got in! I think, after a year of her bugging me about it, getting accepted was just a formality. She wanted me in A Cappella. Not for the good of A Cappella – they were doing great without me – but because she cared about me and knew that being in A Cappella Choir would do me a world of good, which it did.
    • I had a wonderful experience singing in A Cappella Choir my senior year. But Joyce Stuermer wasn’t finished molding this lump of clay called Bill Jones. In the spring, we performed The Music Man. Now please understand – this was no ordinary high school production, this was Oak Park High School, where choral leader Joyce Stuermer, drama leader Leota Clendenen, and orchestral leader James Chandler put students through the paces to put on a near-professional production. As I remember (it was over 50 years ago, so my memory may not be perfect), we had a month of full-dress – with make-up – rehearsals.
      • Everyone in A Cappella had to audition for roles in “The Music Man.” I didn’t get a “role” as such, but I did get a one-line solo in “The Wells Fargo Wagon.” I still remember it – “and once I got some grapefruit from Tampa.” Well, Miss Stuermer told me how she wanted me to do it. She wanted me to push through the crowd of townspeople; when I got through the crowd, I would be cutting right through the middle of the barbershop quartet. She wanted me to push my way through them, giving them a little shove as I came through. There would be two girls sitting on the floor, one on either side of me; she wanted me to place my hands on their heads and push them down, as if I were squeezing a couple of grapefruits.
        • I’m sure I tried to do as she asked, but it just wasn’t my nature to be pushy or assertive. I simply wasn’t doing it to her satisfaction. So, one night, as I had again fallen short of her instructions, she stopped the rehearsal and announced – in front of God and everybody, which included 80 or so A Cappella folks, other actors, stagehands, orchestra, and so forth – that she was naming this rehearsal “BILL JONES NIGHT”; in other words, everything else would be on hold while I continued to repeat my one-line solo until I did it to Joyce Stuermer’s satisfaction!
        • I guess I could have been embarrassed, and – frankly – the rest of the evening is a blur. I don’t remember how many “takes” it took me to get it right, but I doubt it took me too many after that. Joyce Stuermer always pushed me, and she always made me grow. I could have cowered after receiving such attention, could have gone back into my shell, but I didn’t. I determined that I was going to make her proud and – more than that – that I was going to give a performance, not only in my solo but as a member of the “chorus” throughout the production, that would satisfy my own sense of accomplishment.
        • We gave six performances. I wrote a number of “reminders” to myself on an index card, which I carried in my pocket at every performance; whenever I was offstage, I would read through the reminders on that card. Finally, after the sixth and final performance, I felt I had fulfilled every one of the “reminders” on that card to my satisfaction; I could only hope it satisfied Miss Stuermer as well.
        • Joyce Stuermer saw potential in me that I didn’t see in myself. Her influence in my life continues to this day. When I was growing up, I had – truth be told – a “holier-than-thou” attitude. I was the good Christian boy who was in church every week, didn’t swear, etc. And boy, I wore that attitude on my sleeve, especially in Boys’ Glee Club, where the conversation between those guys at times was, let’s just say, less than what I considered “holy.” I don’t remember specifically how, but I obviously made it clear that I didn’t appreciate some of their conversation and that I was “holier than thou.”
        • One day, Miss Stuermer asked me to step into her office. She was a devout Christian, a faithful member of a Methodist church in the area. She told me that she understood where my attitude was coming from but that my behavior was not the Christian “witness” that I thought it was, that I was not reflecting Christ’s spirit at all, and that in fact it was more likely to drive people away from Christ rather than toward him. In all my years, no one had ever cared to confront me about my attitude. But Joyce Stuermer cared, and her message sunk in. I gave very serious thought to what she said. I hope my behavior changed toward those guys – and in other situations as well.
        • In November of my sophomore year at OBU, I lost my faith and came to grips with the shallowness of the faith I had brought to OBU. I hadn’t given up on God, but I was starting from square one in a search for a faith that made sense to me. That Christmas, I went to Oak Park to sing in the combined student & alumni A Cappella Choir’s presentation of Hallelujah from Handel’s Messiah (perhaps other portions of Messiah as well, I don’t remember). Miss Stuermer had left Oak Park in 1969 but was back for this annual tradition. Following the performance, she and I sat down on one of the stairways and talked for awhile. I told her about my newly-begun faith journey. We had a wonderful visit. She seemed delighted – not that I had lost my faith, but that I was actually thinking for a change, that I was searching for a faith I could call my own instead of the faith that had been handed down by my parents or drummed into me by my church.
        • I kept in touch with Joyce (yes, she eventually became Joyce to me instead of Miss Stuermer) over the years. In 2010, Joanna and I went to Kansas City for a Bethany Baptist Church reunion. I called Joyce, and Joanna and I arranged to take her to dinner one evening (Applebee’s, as I recall). We had a wonderful visit. I treasure Joyce’s friendship and the memory of someone who always believed in me and helped me to believe in myself. It was a couple of years later that I received word that Joyce had passed away. She was special.
• Dr. Dan Kahler
  • Speaking of Oak Park High School, Dr. Dan Kahler was a wonderful principal. When I entered Oak Park in 1966, it was only the second year of Oak Park’s existence. I remember Dr. Kahler speaking in Assembly at the beginning of each school year, giving an address titled “When the newness wears off, add a coat of care.” Good advice not only for a school, but for any relationship. I never really had any personal connection to Dr. Kahler in my three years at Oak Park, but I came to deeply respect and admire him. Early in my freshman year at OBU, I wrote him a letter, telling him just that. He replied and asked me to drop in and see him whenever I was home.
  • So when I was home for Christmas vacation from OBU, I dropped in and had a wonderful chat with him in his office. He was easy to talk to, and he told me that he knew of OBU because he had played basketball for Southwestern Oklahoma, which was in OBU’s conference. Shortly after Dr. Kahler passed away a few years ago, Oak Park held a memorial service in his honor. Dr. Kahler meant so much to me that I left home at about 4 a.m. that Saturday, arrived at Oak Park just in time to rehearse with the music alumni, sang in the service, then drove 500 miles back to Texas, arriving at 2 a.m. Sunday – whew, what a 22 hours! But it was worth it, because I needed to be with other Oakies to celebrate this man who had meant so much to so many, including me.
• Peers/friends
  • I had so many wonderful friends in school (attended 6th through 12th grades in the North Kansas City School District) and at Bethany Baptist Church. A few friends who were particularly memorable in school were Jim and John Michels, Carl Civella, and Ray Williams. In recent years, I’ve reconnected with Del Sutton; I was in school with Del from 6th grade at Davidson Elementary, 7th-9th at Northgate Junior High, and 10th-12th at Oak Park. When I was in KC for another Bethany reunion in 2015, I called Del, and we met at a McDonald’s, where we had a wonderful time reminiscing for three hours. We’ve continued to connect on Facebook.
  • At Bethany Baptist Church, I had many good friends. We lost Jerry Eaton last year; he lived not too far from me in his last years. In 2017, he and his brother, Mike, came to the house, and we had a wonderful evening reminiscing, especially about the times we had singing together in the Three Beats and a Half-Note quartet at Bethany. At the reunion in 2015, I reconnected with Robert Ingold, the other member of our quartet. Gary and Donnie Willey were two of my closest friends at Bethany and part of the group – along with Jerry Eaton and Dave Eikenbary – who participated in ping-pong tournaments in my basement back in the day. “Dandy” Dave Eikenbary and I are still very close friends. Diana Caraher (nee Crain) and I reconnected at that reunion in 2010, and we still connect frequently these days via Facebook. John Jackson and I spoke on the phone last year and keep up with each other on Facebook, as I do occasionally with other Bethany friends.

There are many others – people, places, events – that made Kansas City a special place to grow up. I haven’t even mentioned my four summers (while I was a student at OBU) working for the City of Kansas City, MO, as a dog enumerator, my very first job. That’s right – dog enumerator, a job created specifically for college students home for the summer, making sure dog owners have taken their dogs to get their rabies shots AND paid for city dog licenses (the job was part of the Division of Revenue). Our boss, Bernie Erwin, sent us out every morning with our assignments and received our reports at the end of the day. Between those hours, he was at his “day job” working for Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms investigation and enforcement. Bernie was a wonderful guy who really cared about these “kids” who worked for him. A few years ago, I connected with his son, Dennis. Bernie passed away about 15 years ago. I had a nice correspondence with Dennis, telling him how much I admired his dad and what a great boss his dad was. He treated us well. One longtime friend came out of that experience. Pat Huke and I spoke just last year. We became good friends as dog enumerators, and he even participated in one of the ping-pong tournaments at my house.

Well, as I said, there are many others I haven’t taken the time to mention. I’ve tried to hit a few of what I consider the most important.

My point, again, is that one day can truly make a lifetime of difference. There have been a few such days in my life. July 7 (and 8, the day we arrived at our new home in KC), 1962, is one of the most important.