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   On a sunny Thursday morning in Longville, I sat at my desk putting the finishing touches on a list of interview questions. These conversations always come with a certain amount of pressure. In the span of an hour, you hope to capture a lifetime.

   A little after 10:30, 79-year-old Scott Stuart walked through the door wearing casual athletic clothes, having just finished a game of pickleball. He greeted me with a firm handshake and, to my surprise, remembered my name from a brief phone conversation the day before. It was an ordinary introduction, the kind you might have with any friendly neighbor.

   Yet there was something different about this meeting. Scott and his wife, Jane, had recently been named Grand Marshals of Longville’s Fourth of July parade, an honor recognizing decades of generosity and commitment to the community. Around Longville, the Stuart name is well known. It has been part of the community for generations and is connected to projects, landmarks and countless acts of giving that have quietly shaped the town.

   Sitting across the desk, there was no air of importance and no rehearsed stories about accomplishments, just a personable, humble man who seemed far more interested in talking about the people and experiences that shaped his life than about himself.

   During our conversation, one phrase surfaced again and again.

   “Have I mentioned that I’m the luckiest guy in the world?”

   He said it when talking about his family. He said it when talking about his career. He said it when talking about Longville. He said it when talking about Jane. The more often he said it, the more I realized how much he believed it.

   Scott’s connection to Longville began long before he did.

   His grandparents first came to Hackensack in the early 1900s, establishing roots that would grow deeper with each generation. Scott first visited when he was just three years old, escaping the blistering Nebraska summers with his family. His father, Jim, quickly fell in love with the area and purchased property on Woman Lake, south of Longville, where the family cabin still stands today. After building the family’s first cabin with his own hands in the 1950s, Jim unknowingly laid the foundation for a legacy that would continue for generations.

   As a child, Scott spent his summers in Longville, trading city life for the woods and lakes of northern Minnesota. During the height of the polio epidemic, those summers eventually turned into living here full time, offering both peace of mind and a childhood unlike most kids back home.

   It didn’t take long for Scott to notice something Longville was missing.

   “There wasn’t a baseball team,” he recalled.

With the encouragement of his father and the help of enthusiastic community members, the Little Thunder League was born.

   Looking back, that baseball team was only the beginning. Throughout his life, Scott developed a habit of seeing what a community needed and finding a way to help make it happen.

   Scott graduated from the University of Nebraska with a business degree before serving in the United States Navy. His career eventually took him across the country as he accepted new opportunities and built a successful business career.

   Whenever I tried to credit that success to talent or hard work, Scott simply smiled.

“I’ve just been lucky.”

   By the time he retired around 2000, Scott had built a successful career, raised a family and, as he would quickly remind me, had been blessed far more than he deserved.

   Another blessing in his life arrived 38 years ago.

   Jane.

   Scott lights up whenever he talks about his wife. Like him, she graduated from the University of Nebraska, worked in advertising and earned her pilot’s license. He described her as someone with a great heart, unlimited patience and an ability to make friends wherever she goes.

   “When she meets someone she likes,” Scott said with a smile, “even if it’s just in passing, she’ll say, ‘I’d have a beer with them.’”

   When I asked the secret to a happy marriage, he didn’t hesitate.

   “Jane.”

   The projects that bear the Stuart name often began with just an idea.

   After the Longville school closed, the community lost something many people hadn’t considered: a playground. Kay Blais approached Scott with an idea to create a new place for children to gather and play. Scott provided the financial support while community members brought the vision to life. 

   What began as a playground has since grown into Stuart Memorial Park, now home to tennis courts, pickleball courts, a hockey rink, a pavilion, public restrooms and an adaptive playground designed so children of all abilities can enjoy it together.

   His support also helped make possible the baseball complex on County Road 125, creating another place where young athletes could learn, compete and make memories.

   Long before that, aviation had become another part of the Stuart family’s Longville story. Scott’s father, Jim, wanted an easier way to travel between Lincoln and Longville, so he partnered with his friend George Cook to build the community’s first grass airstrip. Years later, when it came time to improve and pave the runway, Scott stepped in to help make that project possible, benefiting not only pilots, but also community events like the Longville Chamber’s annual Fly-In Pancake Breakfast.

   For nearly every project that bears the Stuart name, Scott could tell you far more about the people who helped build it than about the role he played himself.

   Every time he mentioned a project, another list of names followed. Kay Blair. Rusty Lilyquist (who led the efforts for the construction of the pavilion). Steve Johnson. Pat and Marilyn Tabaka. The Carpenter family. The Nyvall family. The names came effortlessly. At 79 years old, he remembered first and last names without hesitation. He never claimed sole credit. It was obvious that, to Scott, the people mattered far more than the projects themselves.

   At one point during our conversation, Scott reflected on his father.

“I just hope I can live up to being my father’s son.”

   The values his parents instilled in him, gratitude, generosity and stewardship, have quietly shaped not only his own life but also the community he has loved for decades. Listening to Scott describe those influences, I couldn’t help but think of the biblical principle that those who have been given much also have a responsibility to give much in return. Whether intentionally or not, Scott has spent much of his life living that idea.

   Despite all he and Jane have done for Longville, Scott remains almost uncomfortable discussing recognition.

   “We’re plain people, just like you,” he said. “We put our pants on the same way every morning. I’ve just been in the right place at the right time.”

   When asked what he hoped people would remember him for, he chuckled for a moment before answering.

   “I hope they’d say they’d like to have a beer with me.”

   As Scott walked out the door, I was already turning over ideas in my head, wondering how to tell the story of a man who refused to take credit for so much of what he had accomplished.

   A moment later, the door opened again.

Scott stepped back into the office.

   “One more thing,” he said.

   “I wouldn’t have been able to do any of the things I did without my loved ones or my community. Nobody gets anywhere by themselves.”

   Then he smiled, wished me well and walked back out into the summer sunshine.

   It struck me that perhaps the most important part of the interview had happened after it was already over.

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