Arts Founder Stigall Dies, Age 86

Lake City Arts founder Mary Monday Stigall died in Gunnison early Tuesday morning, March 6, after a long illness.
A native of Arkansas, where she was born 86 years ago, Stigall and her husband, the photographer Bob Stigall, first came to the area as campers at Wupperman Campground, Lake San Cristobal, in 1971. They acquired Silver Street property where they built a home and later storefront business, Silver Scene Photography, in 1978.
She taught 20 years in the English Dept. at Webster University in suburban St. Louis, Missouri.
It was Stigall’s passion for the visual and performing arts that prompted creation of Lake City Arts Council, now Lake City Arts, in March, 1992. She served as arts council president 1992-2000 and during her multi-year tenure on the arts board served as director and appeared in innumerable on-stage Cabin Fever Players theatrical productions.
She was a founder of the regional theater cooperative, Southwest Community Theater Festival.
Mary Stigall Theater in Moseley Arts Center is named in recognition of her dedication to the arts in Lake City. She also served as chairperson of Lake City Area Medical Board at the time the new medical center was built on Henson Street in 1992.
In addition to her work with Lake City Arts Council and the medical center, Mary Stigall was an accomplished writer who for years wrote a monthly column in SILVER WORLD. A compilation of those columns was published in a hardbound book, entitled “Up Here,” in 2002.
She was diagnosed with MSA (Multiple Systems Atrophy) in 2007 and had been a resident of Gunnison Health Care Center since 2014. Her health declined in recent months, including a bout with pneumonia in January, and she died peacefully in her sleep at 6:20 a.m. on Tuesday.
The family is planning a life celebration later this summer, tentatively scheduled after the July 4 holiday, which will be held at Wupperman Campground at Lake San Cristobal.
Mary Stigall’s survivors are her husband of 64 years, Robert Stigall; two children, Stephen Stigall and Amy Stigall Hindman; and three grandchildren, Tyler Stigall, Kaylin Stigall, and Samuel Hindman.