LaVern D Stucky

LaVern Stucky, 87, Farmer Who Turned Spare Change Into a Global Force for the Hungry, Dies

LaVern D. Stucky, a lifelong farmer, educator, and philanthropist died on September 29, 2025, at age 87 while doing what he loved, farming.

While he spent his life tilling the soil, his most enduring harvest was found in pockets and piggy banks. While chairman of the Kansas Mennonite Relief Sale, he was ever seeking a way to surpass the plateau of traditional fundraising. The spark for a solution came during a family outing when he watched someone bypass a penny on the pavement. He challenged congregations to gather a mile of pennies. In its inaugural year, “The PennyChallenge” brought in $20,000 in spare change. The program, eventually adopted by the Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) and renamed "My Coins Count”, evolved into a global phenomenon. Today, the initiative raises more than $600,000 annually for MCC programs, proving his hypothesis: that the insignificant could be made substantial through collective faith and action.

LaVern D. Stucky was born on July 30, 1938 in Goessel, Kansas to Marion J. and Welma (Siemens) Stucky. He grew up on the same farm north of Moundridge where his father was born, immersed in a tradition of faith, farming and community service. As soon as he was able to trundle behind his dad, he dreamt of a life of farming. While the family avoided frivolous spending, they knew the value of a good tool; for his ninth birthday, a shiny yellow Minneapolis-Moline Z tractor arrived for LaVern to begin his life’s work of turning the soil. Still a great piece of equipment, the old M&M is now on it’s way to the museum in Moundridge.

He met Marilyn Goebel in a Moundridge High School debate class. As debate partners, they did not win many trophies, but they scored high with each other. They married on August 7, 1958 and embarked on a 66-year partnership that functioned as a continuous, albeit loving, rhetorical match.

LaVern earned a Bachelors degree from Bethel College in 1960 and a Masters in Education Administration from Emporia State University. He spent many years balancing the demands of teaching history, speech, social studies and coaching state-winning debate teams in Arkansas City and Newton with raising a family and  farming. He loved debate and forensics, but coaching demanded Saturdays, and that got in the way of farming. When encouraged to get a Doctorate in administration, he chose the soil instead, taking a teaching position in Peabody that allowed him to farm on evenings and weekends. He was known as a demanding educator—a standard his daughters felt acutely when they were his students.

After nearly 20 years he chose to leave the classroom to farm full-time. His life was not without the scars of the 1980s farm crisis. When his farm went into receivership, he pivoted, refurbishing and selling cars and delivering propane to navigate the inevitable transition back to farming. He viewed his struggles through a favorite maxim: "Success is getting up just one more time than you fall down."

A sixth-generation descendant of Elder Jacob Stucky—who led Mennonite immigrants to Kansas in 1874. He was an ardent champion of his Mennonite roots. As President of the Swiss Mennonite Cultural and Historical Association, he stabilized the organization’s finances, restored monuments and the Hopefield Cemetery, and led learning tours. LaVern lived to celebrate this revitalization with the recent 150th anniversary of the 1874 migration.

On his 80th birthday he extemporized, “I was born into a family of mentors—some goal-oriented, some just ornery. They taught me to respect the academics and the trades alike. Because of them, I can rebuild an engine or design a machine, but I also have a deep appreciation for history and speech. My parents ensured that the church was my foundation.

LaVern loved a good joke and perhaps, even better a good argument. He had no desire to be remembered as a saint. Yet for his gruffness, sentimentality poured out of his pen, as he wrote poems to mark milestones and tucked lovely notes into birthday cards. His greatest softness was reserved for Marilyn. He was never happier than when she was laughing; when she dropped her guard, his own infectious laugh would fill the room. He taught his grandsons to “eat like you worked” and took every opportunity for an afternoon “Pepsi break” with them.

Yet, the man who debated everything to exhaustion, in his penultimate month he signaled a final truce to his daughters, stating simply, “I don’t want to fight with you girls anymore.”

He remained, until his final hour ambitious. He was an avid reader, a knowledge seeker, an innovator, an accumulator and the wind beneath our wings. He was a man who lived by his own frequent challenge to his grandsons: "Are you a man or a mouse?"

By no account was LaVern ever the mouse.

LaVern leaves behind a legacy of faith in action and a family he adored: his daughters Cynthia Beth (Charles) and Janelle Unrau (Grant); his grandsons Matthew (Kristine) and Justin (Molly); and his great-grandsons Jaxson and Landon. He was preceded in death by his beloved Marilyn (Goebel), his daughter Aileen Joy, his parents Marion J. and Welma and siblings Karlyn, Glenn and Phyllis Ann.

A Celebration of Life will be held June 20, 2026, 11:00 am at Bethel College Mennonite Church, North Newton, KS. In lieu of flowers, please consider a contribution to Bethel College Julius & Olga Stucky Peace Fund or Swiss Mennonite Cultural and Historical Association Immigrant House and Museum Project.

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