He was honored for his contribution to higher education this year, but it was a different story in 1980, when Jon Stewart, Johnson County Community College’s honoree of the year, was trying to get his start in life.
Stewart had been out of high school for seven years but had no college degree. Instead he’d been working various jobs – a stint at the state highway department, a lot of warehouse shifts. It was the kind of work available around Chapman, a Kansas town of about 1,300 between Abilene and Junction City where he’d grown up.
Stewart had a young family, though, and needed to do better. At 25, he decided he needed a degree. “I decided if I’m going to be happy, I have to at least pursue this. I didn’t know if I could do it,” he said, but “at 25, if I’m ever going to do it I need to do it now.”
So he and his wife packed up their two daughters, ages 1 and 7, and moved the 140-plus miles to Johnson County, where there were jobs he could work while attending JCCC.
The plan was for him to get a degree and become an electrical engineer.
Instead, Stewart, who now lives in Lake Quivira and just turned 70, is being honored for years as a banker who has continually worked to raise scholarship money for young adults like he was in 1980.
“The college has meant so much in my life that I want to give back,” he said. “I want to give other students who might be non-traditional and not sure they can make it an opportunity to go to college and improve their lives through education.”
Stewart has been named JCCC’s Johnson Countian of the Year for 2025, an honor that will be celebrated in November at the school’s “Some Enchanted Evening” gala. The event is, aptly enough, a fundraiser for student scholarships.
He’s been continuously involved in the school, as well as numerous other civic organizations. He was a JCCC trustee during the 2008 recession. But perhaps nearest and dearest to Stewart’s heart is the Cohen Community Series, he says. That series of concerts also raises money for scholarships. Stewart started it in 2008 with a gift to honor the memory of Barton P. Cohen, former president of Metcalf Bankshares.
Stewart never did become an electrical engineer. He credits his mentors for that.
After arriving in the county, Stewart went to the student center to look through the job postings. As it happened, there was one for a part-time employee at Corporate Woods State Bank.
Stewart was hired. His boss, Lynn Mitchelson, was also on the JCCC Foundation. As Stewart was getting ready to graduate, Mitchelson took him to lunch and asked him about his long-range plans. At the time, Stewart was still thinking of that electrical engineering degree.
But he was persuaded to pursue banking instead, at Mitchelson’s urging and his “very generous offer” to let him work hours allowing him to continue a business administration degree at the University of Kansas.
Later, he went to work for Metcalf Bank, eventually becoming president and chief executive officer there. Stewart credits the late Ben Craig, former president, and one of the people instrumental in starting the community college, with encouragement to stay involved in community affairs.
“I credit the college with really changing my life and any success I’ve had,” Stewart said. “I’ve never forgotten that.”
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