"It's the landscape that doesn't change—and how precious it is to everyone [at Sewanee]. The landscape roots you to the place."
For some students, departing for college means cutting, or at least loosening, a few ties—with hometown hangouts, high school acquaintances, familiar routines, or other comforts. Mary Laura Hogeman Stagno, C’82, L’20, P’17, traveled a not-insignificant distance to enroll at Sewanee, leaving behind her parents and sister in St. Louis. Yet, she says, coming to the Mountain helped her feel more connected to her past.
Stagno’s great-uncle, Harold Eustis, C’37, served as a member of the University’s Board of Regents from 1985 to 1991, and two more great-uncles—Orville Blanton Eustis, C’35, and Herbert Lee Eustis Jr., C’28— were also Sewanee graduates. After a childhood punctuated by several family moves, due to her father’s corporate career, she says she welcomed the chance to experience a place that she’d grown up hearing stories about while visiting her mother’s family in Greenville, Mississippi. As Stagno notes, Greenville was home to well-known lawyer and poet William Alexander Percy, C’1904, a family friend who was instrumental in the Eustis brothers attending the University. Stagno says she treasures a Percy poetry collection passed down by her grandmother, which includes a poem about her great-grandmother, handwritten by Percy, in the end pages.
One way Stagno now honors her Sewanee connections is by contributing to the Eustis Family Scholarship, a need-based fund designated for high-achieving students from Mississippi. The scholarship was established by Harold Eustis, C’37, in memory of his brothers, Orville and Herbert, with support from the former Sewanee Club of the Mississippi Delta. Recently, Stagno worked with Director of Gift and Estate Planning Allison Cardwell to grow the scholarship with a sizable planned gift.
Stagno’s cousin, Herbert Lee Eustis III, C’71, is also a longtime donor to the scholarship, and in 2023 he and Stagno collaborated to more than double its size. With help from Senior Advancement Officer John Whaling, C’07, the cousins set up a giving challenge—Eustis pledged a major sum toward the scholarship, and Stagno drafted a letter challenging other family members to provide gifts toward a funding match. Whaling facilitated the outreach by supplying pledge cards and return envelopes. “Not only was this an amazing act of generosity on Herbert’s and Mary Laura’s part, but it showed real innovation too,” Whaling says. “We often encourage challenge gifts on Tiger Tuesday, but Herbert and Mary Laura have shown that challenges can be used by Sewanee donors throughout the year to successfully expand family scholarships and other personal endowments.”
As an undergraduate, Stagno majored in international and global studies, and she says she was excited to take classes with former Alfred Negley Professor of Politics Barclay Ward, a former foreign service officer who had worked in the U.S. Department of State and continued to serve there during the summers while teaching at Sewanee. “He was very plugged into SALT [Strategic Arms Limitation Talks] Treaties and nuclear nonproliferation,” Stagno says. She also valued her American history coursework with former Professor of History Anita S. Goodstein, H’94.
Outside the classroom, Stagno led and participated in the Student Forum, a group that brought speakers from a wide range of disciplines to campus for lectures and panel discussions. Notably, she worked with committee member Everett Puri, C’82, P’20, to coordinate a visit from William E. Colby, former director of the CIA. An article in The Sewanee Purple from Sept. 24, 1981, reports, “Speaking only from a sketchy outline as his notes—a practice he has developed over his public speaking career so that his lectures vary from one to the next—Colby captivated the audience that packed Convocation Hall to capacity (plus some).”
Before her junior year, Stagno landed a summer internship with the National Clean Air Coalition, and she spent two months living in Washington, D.C., with Mary Claire Shipp Murphy, C’82, P’17, P’21, who was interning on Capitol Hill. Several years later—after graduating from Sewanee and testing out careers at CNN and in interior design with a course of study in London —Stagno returned to D.C., with the goal of working for an auction house while living with Murphy. Instead, Stagno took a job in the development office of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, assisting the director of planned giving with documenting heirloom donations. The department was staffed by “a group of wonderful, strong women in their 30s and 40s—people I really learned from,” she says. Ultimately, she moved on from Washington, but she has continued to use her development skills, both in professional roles and as a volunteer.
A desire to live closer to her family took Stagno to Birmingham, where she met her husband, Dr. Sergio Stagno, P’17, while working with the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) to raise money for medical research. Seeking a creative outlet while raising two children and volunteering, she discovered coursework opportunities in UAB’s English Department—and fell in love with the creative writing process. “It’s thrilling to be in a workshop around a table with people of all different ages and backgrounds sharing work and learning from the process.” As a summertime supplement to her UAB classes, she traveled to the Mountain to audit Sewanee Writers’ Conference seminars. “I really enjoyed the conference’s terrific teaching lectures given by masters of their craft.”
With encouragement from her former Sewanee classmate Virginia Harvey Ottley Craighill, C’82, P’20, who formerly served as a professor of English on the Mountain, Stagno applied to the School of Letters in 2016. Initially, Stagno says, she felt uncertain about pursuing an MFA, but she drew reassurance from a conversation with Dr. Henry Langhorne, C’53, L’16, a longtime family friend and the former poet laureate of northwest Florida. Noting that Langhorne was in his 70s when he attended the School of Letters, Stagno says, “I felt inspired, and I decided to do it.” As it happened, the timing was ideal—Stagno’s enrollment at the School of Letters coincided with her husband’s retirement. “While I was in class, Sergio went to Shakerag painting workshops with our friends Paul Ware, [C’82], and Joy Ogburn Gardner, [C’82, P’13, P’15]. It was perfect.”
Stagno now exercises her creative skills as the facilitator of a writing program at the Lovelady Center, a Birmingham residential recovery center for women. “It’s the largest faith-based rehabilitation center for women in the country,” she notes. She says her four summers at the School of Letters were formative in guiding her to the position. “Through my MFA degree, I’ve been able to design the program, partnering with the creative writing department at UAB—including Adam Vines, who both teaches at UAB and has been on staff at the Sewanee Writers’ Conference—to offer more creative writing opportunities, readings, and publications for the residents of the Center.”
While Stagno was studying at the School of Letters, her son, Blanton, was also working toward a Sewanee degree. He graduated with a B.A. in history in 2017. More than three decades separate Mary Laura’s undergraduate career from her son’s matriculation at the College, yet, she says, certain parts of Sewanee remain unaltered. Borrowing from a poem that Virginia Craighill wrote for the Class of 1982’s 25th reunion, Stagno says, “It’s the landscape that doesn’t change—and how precious it is to everybody [at Sewanee]. The landscape roots you to the place.”
