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Joe deSteiguer Remembered

By Alex Maxwell and Leah Sikes

 

Joe deSteiguer, son of John and Darla and brother to Abby deSteiguer, passed away this morning in his Phase III apartment at Oklahoma Christian University.

To those who knew Joe – the many he influenced, and the many who cared for him – the previous sentence is not what defined him. Joe was many things, but most of all he was loved.

Joe loved to travel. He once confided that he dreamed of writing for National Geographic. Joe especially loved Australia, where he visited twice on month-long mission campaigns.

Senior Dakota Enriquez and sophomore Kelcy Nash traveled with Joe on his second trip to the country in May of last year. Nash first met Joe while preparing for the mission campaign.

“Australia was really special to Joe,” Nash said. “Since it was his second trip, they called him the boomerang child. He loved Australia and was really happy there.”

Missionary in Resident Kent Hartman introduced Joe to Australia. Hartman was a missionary to the country and often sent postcards while on visits back. Two recipients of those notes included Joe and Abby.

“We just kind of connected,” Hartman said. “He’s quite a bit like our son, so we kind of hit it off there a little bit.”

According to Hartman, he and Joe shared a bond and talked often.

“He and I laughed a lot and smiled a lot and talked a lot, and that was just fun, fun for me,” Hartman said. “He just was a good friend, as so many students here are to me.”

Hartman described Joe as a thinker with a big smile and caring.

Joe eventually expressed interest in visiting Australia, but Hartman said he should wait until he was in college.

In 2011, Joe finally visited Australia.

“The first two weeks were real hard [for Joe],” Hartman said. “Then we got to Campbelltown, where Nancy and I used to lived, and he stayed with a lady named Shirley and she just embraced him.”

Hartman said it was like Joe was meeting his long-lost grandmother — the two just clicked. At a lunch with the church congregation, Hartman said he witnessed a unique scene.

“Everybody else is over here doing something, and I look over there, and there’s Joe and Shirley standing there with their arms around each other – they’ve known each other three days,” Hartman said.

Before the trip, Hartman said he told Joe he was not required to participate in any activities he did not feel comfortable with.

“We’re not expecting you to sing, not expecting you to pray, not expecting you to read, I would just love to have you go with me, though,” Hartman said.

However, at the end of the trip, Hartman said that Joe took a big step.

“I think he led the closing prayer at church the last Sunday we were there,” Hartman said. “I just said ‘Joe, I told you I wouldn’t force you to do anything, but it looks like to me you have kind of gotten into it, would you like to lead a prayer today?’ and he said ‘Yeah, I would love to lead a prayer.’”

When the group was leaving, the congregation at Campbelltown encouraged Joe to return.

“I remember Shirley saying, ‘Joe, if I have people in my bedroom, you can sleep on my couch, whatever you do I want you to come back,” Hartman said.

As per Shirley’s request, Joe returned just a few years later.

“He felt really welcomed back and like he belonged,” Enriquez said. “They kind of made it a special treat for him – of all six of us they made him feel even more welcomed.”

Nash said she remembered a time when she, Joe and Enriquez were sitting in the back of a van talking. She said sometimes he had doubts of his faith, but that didn’t stop him from helping others and learning.

“He said, ‘I just love Australia, and I just want to come back and I just want to do good … everywhere I go,’” Nash said Joe continued on with, “‘I just want to be good to people and see if they have any needs and try to fill them. Whatever I can do to just spread good things.’”

If Joe and Nash had differing opinions, or he was struggling with a topic – it didn’t matter, Nash said.

“We were just going to do good together and spread God’s word and work together,” Nash said.

Nash and Enriquez described Joe as chill, a cool cat, genuine and mysterious.

“He was nonjudgmental, he would talk to anyone about anything,” Nash said. “It didn’t matter where you came from, or what you believed or anything like that, he would just talk to anyone and share and become friends with them.”

Joe liked to read and write; he often wrote scary short stories. Nash said Joe had a kind of hardcore vibe because of his long hair and the tree tattoo on his shoulder, but he was quite the opposite once you got to know him.

“He definitely hit that profile of someone who was deep in their thoughts, he twirls his hair a lot like he’s contemplating, like he’s thinking,” Enriquez said.

Zach Barron, general manager at Jimmy John’s next to campus, met Joe during high school. Joe worked with Barron at Jimmy Johns. Barron went to Edmond North and Joe attended Edmond Memorial.

“Dude was one of the nicest guys I ever met,” Barron said. “He would never turn away from an offer. If I wanted to hang out, he was there; he would always do what he could.”

Barron said he remembered a time when he and Joe went car surfing.

“We were at a friend of ours birthday party, and I had this brilliant idea to get on the side of a moving truck,” Barron said. “He stood in the back of the truck and we were driving. … We had 60 miles an hour and no one said it was a bad idea. And Joe was just sitting there with that damn smile of his.”

A car suddenly drifted in front of the truck, and the driver slammed down on the breaks.

“I go flying off the side of the car, take the window off, hit my head,” Barron said. “And the first thing I see is Joe, and I look up to him, ‘what just happened?’ ‘You just fell off a car.’”

While Barron was stumbling around searching for his missing hat, the rest of the friends abandoned him, but Joe stayed.

“Everyone else drove away, and he just stuck with me all the way back to our friend’s house, cleaned me up, made sure I was okay, took me back to my parents,” Barron said.

Barron described Joe as soft-spoken, real, kindhearted and hard working.

Most people who came into contact with Joe remember his smile, Nash remembers more.

“If you didn’t get the opportunity to meet him, I’m sorry,” Nash said. “I feel really blessed that we got a month with Joe in his favorite place in the world. Not everyone got to see that side of him or knew that side of him. He was really cool, and I would love for people to know that about him, I don’t want him to be defined by the things he struggled with, because that’s not who he was. He was cool; he was a great guy.”

Joe was 22 years of age when he passed away.

 

 

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