Don Stephan

DONALD K. STEPHAN (March 7, 1934 – Oct. 19, 2026)

WICHITA, Kansas – Donald K. Stephan, 92, founder and retired president of the Wichita-based Stephan Advertising Agency, died Monday, Oct. 19, 2026. A memorial service is scheduled for 7 p.m., Monday, Oct. 26 at St. George Orthodox Christian Cathedral, with a celebration of life and fellowship to follow at 11 a.m., Tuesday, Oct. 27 at Kensington Gardens and Cozine Life Events Center.

Don was born March 7, 1934, in Wichita, the middle child of Taft and Julia (Stevens) Stephan. Growing up, all three of the Stephan kids worked in various Stevens family businesses, Don’s younger sister Jeanette in their mother’s neighborhood grocery/variety store and Jeanette, Don and their older brother Bob in their grandfather’s tobacco warehouse.

After graduating from North High School, Don served in the U.S. Army at Fort Riley, Kansas, and — thanks to the results of an aptitude test his mother had him take as a youngster — went on to study journalism and advertising at the University of Wichita. While a student at WU, he married Sharon Faulkner in June 1957. The couple had three children — Robin, Stacey and Ryan — before divorcing in 1972.

Despite his tested aptitude for advertising and his experience working at two local ad agencies as a college student and shortly after earning a BA in journalism in 1959, it took a couple of missteps, including a financially disastrous entrepreneurial venture in potatoes (yes, potatoes), to set him on the right career path.

Aptitude for Advertising

Following that investment failure, Stephan rolled up his ad man sleeves, rented a desk and a typewriter and set up shop in a one-room headquarters in the Petroleum Building. A meager beginning, indeed, but by 1968 the Stephan Advertising Agency (SAA) had moved to suites in the Archer-Taylor Drug Building on Lewis Street and by the early 1970s had reached the $1 million in annual billings mark.

In 1981, after several more agency address changes and a year after Stephan was named Advertising Man of the Year by the Advertising Club of Wichita, a snapshot of SAA featured a staff roster of 24 people, including account executives, copy writers, graphic designers, artists and a market researcher (the only one in Wichita at the time). Lynn (Kincheloe) Stephan, the agency’s executive vice president and creative director, had begun her own career in advertising as SAA’s first-ever copy writer. Don and Lynn were married in a tiny Las Vegas chapel in 1977.

SAA passed other significant milestones in 1982, gaining the position of third-largest ad agency in Kansas with billings of over $6.5 million and settling into a new agency home at 247 N. Market. Throughout the 1980s, SAA commercials for scores of local and regional retail businesses filled the airwaves. Some examples: David’s Discount Stores (The name for all the best); Barrier’s Jewelers (We’re shining for you); Railroad Savings (Right on line; we’re your kind of people); Big Cheese Pizza (Your kind of pizza); Taco Tico (Everybody loves the taste of Taco Tico); Horton’s Furniture (Hor-ton’s) and, of course, the ads the agency produced for Don’s brother Bob: the late Robert Taft Stephan, who served four four-year terms (1979-1995) as Kansas Attorney General (He’s the one).

SAA’s own jingle was: We know you. You know us.

Over the years, SAA won many, many awards of excellence, including the Effie, from the Advertising Association of New York.

Commitment to Education

Stephan’s longstanding support of academics, athletics and alumni engagement at his alma mater, Wichita State University, was applauded with the 1992 WSU Alumni Recognition Award. A donor to many university initiatives, programs and building projects, including the Woodman Center, he was a member of the Shocker Athletic Scholarship Organization and served on many university task forces and advisory councils through the years. He was also a past president and longtime board member of the university’s alumni organization — and was the originator and sustainer of the Stephan Advertising Agency Scholarship at WSU.

Although he once said he didn’t intentionally set out to devote so much time and attention to WSU, he placed great value on education: “Wichita State is going to be here long after all of us are gone. Education ultimately is the answer to all our problems. To shortchange it in any way is a major mistake.”

His wife and both of his daughters are graduates of WSU.

Preceded in death by his parents, brother and grandson, Michael Abourizk II, he is survived by his wife; children Ryan Stephan (Kim), Robin Abourizk (Michael) and Stacy Bundy (Alan); grandchildren Melissa Vasquez, Jennifer Stephan, Tyler Stephan (Lindy), Emilie Abourizk-Stevens (Kyle), Kassie Stuart (Bryce), Valerie Egan (Chris), Alexis Simmons, Stephan Simmons; great-grandchildren Renee Machaud (Zachary), Victoria Vasquez, Kyleigh Vasquez, Adilyn Stephan, Carter Stephan, Tegan Stephan, Emmett Stuart; and his great-great-grandchild Finley Machaud.

Memorial contributions may be made to the Don and Lynn Stephan Journalism Scholarship through the WSU Foundation and Alumni Engagement, c/o WSUFAE, 1845 Fairmount, Campus Box 2, Wichita, KS 67260-0002, https//foundation.wichita.edu/memorials-honors/.