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Interview of ROBERT T. STEPHAN, by Mike Matson, October 21, 2020 Kansas Oral History Project, Inc

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Interview of ROBERT T. STEPHAN, by Mike Matson, October 21, 2020 Kansas Oral History Project, Inc Interview of ROBERT T. STEPHAN, by Mike Matson, October 21, 2020 Kansas Oral History Project, Inc. Mike Matson: Hi, I'm Mike Matson. The date is October 21, 2020. We're in the home of former Kansas Attorney General, Robert T. Stephan, in Lenexa, Kansas. We're here to conduct an interview that will become part of the Kansas Oral History Project. David Heinemann, a member of the Oral History Project Board of Directors, is serving as videographer. The Kansas Oral History Project is a nonprofit organization created to collect and preserve oral histories of Kansans who were involved in shaping and implementing public policy during the last half of the 20th century in Kansas. Recordings and transcripts of these oral history interviews are accessible to researchers, to educators, and the general public through the Kansas Historical Society and the State Library of Kansas. The Kansas Oral History Project is supported by donations from individuals and grants from Evergy and Humanities Kansas. Robert T. Stephan has the distinction of being the longest-serving Kansas Attorney General, serving from 1979 to 1995, and being elected four times in that capacity. Prior to serving as Attorney General, Stephan served as a Wichita Municipal Court Judge, and then as Judge of the District Court for Sedgwick County. He has been a licensed attorney for more than fifty years. Bob Stephan is a Kansan of Lebanese descent who was born and grew up in Wichita. He is a 1950 graduate of Wichita North High School and earned his Bachelor's Degree in Political Science in 1954 and Juris Doctorate in 1957, both from Washburn University in Topeka. Mr. Stephan was admitted to practice law before the Kansas Supreme Court, the United States Federal District Court, the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals, and the United States Supreme Court. As Attorney General, Mr. Stephan worked tirelessly to implement a number of important issues including enhancing victims' rights. He first established a Kansas Attorney General's Victim Rights Task Force in 1987. Through the leadership of Attorney General Stephan, this multidisciplinary task force developed recommendations that led to many changes for victims in Kansas and culminated in the 1992 Kansas Constitutional Amendment for Victims' Rights. During his career, General Stephan has taken on many different leadership roles that illustrate his unique ability to effectively serve the public. He served as Chairman of the Kansas Sentencing Commission, Chairman of the Kansas Governors' Domestic Violence Fatality Review Board, and Advisory Committee Member to the United States Department of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Protection, and as President of the National Association of Attorneys General, just to name a few. Throughout his career, General Stephan has actively participated in local, state, and national boards and civic organizations, including Access to Justice Committee—he was appointed by the Kansas Supreme Court, the American Cancer Society, the Kansas Bar Association, Big Brothers and Big Sisters, Kansas Legal Services, the Johnson County Criminal Justice Advisory Council, and Special Olympics Kansas. © 2021 Kansas Oral History Project, Inc Interview of ROBERT T. STEPHAN, by Mike Matson, October 21, 2020 General Stephan is the recipient of a number of honors and awards, most notably the President's Citation from the National Association of Attorneys General, a State Ally of the Year Award from the Kansas Coalition against Sexual and Domestic Violence, Kansas Trial Judge of the Year, and winner of the Fred Ellsworth Medallion, which represents the highest honor to service to the university from the University of Kansas Alumnae Association, a Distinguished Service Award from Washburn University, and the Allied Professional Award from the National Organization for Victim Assistance. After his service as Attorney General, Bob Stephan and his wife Marilyn moved here to Lenexa, and he worked as a Corporate Legal Consultant until his retirement in 2018. Good morning, General Stephan. Robert Stephan: Wow, that was a long deal. MM: That's an impressive career, and we appreciate your willingness to sit down for this project and allow us into your home for this conversation. RS: I'm honored to be able to do it. Thank you. MM: Let's start by talking about Bob Stephan, the young man. You grew up in Wichita. RS: I did. MM: Tell us about Wichita back in your formative years. RS: I was born and raised in Wichita. The Wichita hospital is where I was born. I don't know if it's there now. My grandparents came to the United States from Lebanon, emigrated here, and my father was born in Lebanon and came here. I was busy in Wichita, but there was a lot of prejudice. People didn't like Lebanese people. You couldn't belong to any country club except one. There was one, the Rolling Hills Country Club. The prejudice was just unreal. In grade school, sometimes we'd get beat up, my brother and I. In fact, one day they beat Don up—that's my brother—so I go get a sledgehammer, went across the street, and they were building a rowboat, these guys. I took the sledgehammer and busted it up. I shouldn't have done that, but I did. And the prejudice just increased. Once some guy called me a dirty Syrian. I didn't know who he was, but that's the way it went. Being of Lebanese descent was a bad thing in Wichita. Everything kind of went along. I made it. MM: What you described, those challenges from folks who didn't appreciate your ethnicity, what did that mean for your parents when they saw their children being inflicted with some of these challenges? © 2021 Kansas Oral History Project, Inc. Page 2 of 12 Interview of ROBERT T. STEPHAN, by Mike Matson, October 21, 2020 RS: I'm sure they were used to it. They put up with it, just accepted that that was going to happen. My father, he was not a nice guy. He was an alcoholic. They had a little grocery store. They both worked in the grocery store, but when he was drunk, he beat my mother up, and he would beat me up. I don't think he ever did that to Don and Jeanette, my brother and sister. They got along. They worked the grocery store together. I still dream about the beatings that she endured, especially once when the police came to my grandparents' home. My mom was in bad, bad shape, screaming on the couch, “He's going to kill me.” The police took my dad off. It's something I'll never forget. It's something I dream about today. MM: When you think about your brother and your sister, your siblings, the children of these two, did that bring you together as siblings closer perhaps than otherwise might have been? RS: I don't know if it did or not. I don't think they were subject to the abuse from my father that I was. In fact, when he died, he was living in Fort Wayne, Indiana then. They went to his funeral. I didn't go. I didn't have any use for him and frankly don't today. It was a tough childhood. MM: We appreciate your honesty in sharing that with us. It's an important part of what made you the individual that you eventually became. RS: It might be, yes. MM: Talk to us about when you first had the notion of the law and making a career out of the law. RS: It's hard to know exactly when all of that came. I graduated from North High School. I was going to go to college. I decided that the law was my forte. I went to Washburn and Washburn Law School and graduated as a law student. MM: Do you remember what it was about the law that intrigued you? RS: You know, I really don't remember. Maybe it was because of my father and how mean he was. I wanted to do something to stop that kind of activity. I think I did stop some of it years later. MM: You bet. We'll talk about that in a minute or two. After law school, did you come back to Wichita to practice law? RS: I did. MM: What did that look like? RS: Well, it was different. I went with a law firm there and did legal work, the usual stuff, and became a Municipal Court Judge, which was neat, and I enjoyed it, and then became a Judge of © 2021 Kansas Oral History Project, Inc. Page 3 of 12 Interview of ROBERT T. STEPHAN, by Mike Matson, October 21, 2020 the District Court, and that was also a great experience. So things went along well. I decided to run for Attorney General. I'm not sure why, but I did. MM: That would have been 1978 in your first campaign for Attorney General. RS: Right. MM: Let's talk a little bit about the position of Attorney General. It's sort of a unique position within state government with respect to the power and the authority and the duties and the responsibilities. When you thought about running, did you have a sense of what the actual duties would be and the power and the ability you would have to help move policy kind of stuff? Was it career ambition? Give us a sense of what drove the decision. RS: I wasn't really sure what I'd be doing if I won the race for Attorney General, but it was a good position, certainly good for a lawyer.
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