Memorial service celebrates life of Mary Hempel

Mary Hempel

3:42 p.m., Oct. 11, 2005--Family and friends gathered Tuesday to remember Mary J. Hempel as a loving sister and aunt, a generous colleague and a talented professional communicator, whose tireless dedication to the University of Delaware was matched by an ability to find humor in the world around her and a willingness to share her laughter with others.

About 500 members of the University community and her family assembled at the Bob Carpenter Center to celebrate the life of Ms. Hempel, assistant to the president and director of the Office of Public Relations, who died Sept. 30 after a brief illness.

Ms. Hempel joined UD in 1971 as an associate news editor in what then was a small campus news bureau and was named news editor the following year. Under her direction over the next 34 years, the Office of Public Relations grew into a multifaceted unit that now produces several print and online publications and handles media relations, photography, advertising, marketing and the University mascot, YoUDee.

Longtime friends who spoke at the service shared memories of Ms. Hempel and reflected on her legacy as a helper, mentor and enthusiastic supporter of the University’s goals and cheerleader for its accomplishments. Her niece, Alison Roath March, recalled that, even as a child, she knew her aunt loved two things above all--her family and her job. Ms. Hempel, March said, loved the beauty, energy and diversity of the UD campus.

But, she said, "...the thing she loved the most was the UD family of which she was a part. She loved the people she worked with, and I learned quickly how much you all loved her back."

Before the service began, a series of slides on screens flanking the lectern highlighted some of the many projects Ms. Hempel had overseen, from photos showcasing the campus in different seasons to colorful banners and vibrant murals on display at various University locations. Images of magazines, brochures and calendars produced by the Office of Public Relations and of public-awareness and community-outreach campaigns created by the office were on display, along with photos of UD buses wrapped in artwork and of YoUDee engaged in assorted antics.

In his remarks at the service, President David P. Roselle noted Ms. Hempel’s key role in the projects shown in the slides, in addition to numerous others. "When you access UDaily, think of Mary....When you walk on The Green, stop and read the historical markers; those are Mary’s words," he said, calling such tangible reminders "only a few of the lasting contributions Mary made to the institution she loved so completely."

“And, they do not constitute what is her most important legacy,” Roselle said. “What was most important about Mary, and the reasons we all loved her so dearly, were her personal qualities. Mary was always available to help, to listen, to advise, to laugh and to cheer. She was tireless and relentless in the pursuit of excellence.”

John Brennan, senior associate director of public relations, who worked with Ms. Hempel since 1972, spoke of her devotion to the printed word, as a voracious reader, a trained journalist and a gifted writer and editor. He recalled her ability to write and edit materials from brochures to speeches to proposals and to evaluate photos and designs in order to select those with the most impact for a particular purpose.

“All this boils down, of course, to an ability to communicate,” Brennan said. “And, Mary was a master at that.”

He also praised her interest in innovation and her desire always to find fresh, new ways to cover a story or present the University’s message. “She was not interested in repeating herself, and she certainly knew that readers were not interested in seeing the same thing over and over,” Brennan said.

“At work, she was never happier than when she was in the middle of getting a new project off the ground, working out the nuances, considering the possibilities, gathering support from others and setting things in motion.”

Robert R. Davis, vice president for University development and alumni relations, who worked with Ms. Hempel for almost 30 years, called her "a creative genius at seeing the whole picture and then putting to task the people and resources to get the job done." Most of all, Davis said, his memories revolve around the humor Ms. Hempel brought to situations from business meetings to social occasions--extending even to public relations crises.

Davis recounted a University ceremony for which 1,000 programs had been printed for distribution. At 5 p.m. the night before the event, he said, he discovered that the guest of honor’s middle initial had been incorrectly printed as “L” rather than “J.” He said he hurried to Ms. Hempel’s office to alert her to the impending fiasco, only to have her call “a printer friend of mine,” who corrected the initial, reprinted the offending page, reassembled the programs and delivered them to campus by midnight.

“Mary said at the end of the night, ‘This is what friends are for.’ Leave it to Mary to find the humor in the situation,” Davis said. “The next day, stretched across the door of my office was a computer-generated banner” with the dignitary’s correct name, including the middle initial “J,” and the phrase, “Get the L. outta here.”

“It’s Mary’s legacy of love and laughter that she gave us that lingers here today and for a very long time to come,” Davis said.

The invocation at the service was delivered by Father Michael Szupper of St. Thomas More Oratory, who remembered Ms. Hempel’s willingness to interrupt her work to listen and to share. Her office door was always open, he said, an indication of “the generous sharing of her life and her nurturing presence.”

The service concluded with remarks by the Rev. Laura Lee C. Wilson of Mt. Olive United Methodist Church in Randallstown, Md., and formerly of the Wesley Foundation at UD. She repeated some of Ms. Hempel’s favorite quotations, including Ralph Waldo Emerson’s, “What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.” Ms. Hempel, she said, had “a deep sense of timing and love for those she touched in so many ways.”

Musical interludes were provided by Xiang Gao, associate professor of music at the University and an internationally acclaimed violinist, who played “Sarabande” from Bach’s Solo Partita in D minor and “Dream” by Robert Schumann.

An opening song, “With Hope” by Steven Curtis Chapman, was performed by Keith Heckert of the Office of Public Relations, Larry Larraga of Information Technologies-User Services and Larraga’s son, Corin Larraga.

Ms. Hempel was born in Clinton, Iowa, and earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in journalism from the University of Missouri at Columbia. While a graduate student, she served as a Washington, D.C., correspondent for several newspapers as part of the university’s Graduate Reporting Program.

In her UD career, she was appointed director of what was then the Office of Information Services in 1979. In 1997, she was named assistant to the president and director of the Office of Public Relations.

Ms. Hempel was an active volunteer with Delaware Hospice and the March of Dimes Birth Defects Foundation, and she supported numerous other charities. She was a member of many University committees and of the Delaware Diamonds Society. In 2002, she received the Downtown Newark Partnership’s first Outstanding Volunteer Award.

Article by Ann Manser

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