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A JOINT RESOLUTION designating the Dr. John Dallas Stempel Memorial 1
Highway in Fayette County. 2
WHEREAS, John Dallas Stempel was born on July 26, 1938, in Easton, 3
Pennsylvania, the son of John Emmert and Mary Farmer Stempel; and 4
WHEREAS, John Dallas Stempel attended Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson 5
School, where he won top academic honors. Upon graduation in 1960, he earned a Navy 6
commission through his time in the Princeton NROTC program; and 7
WHEREAS, John Dallas Stempel was assigned to the USS Walton (DE -361), 8
operating out of San Francisco, and in 1961 the ship was ordered to Vietnam to help train 9
the small Vietnamese Navy; and 10
WHEREAS, after his military serv ice was complete, John Dallas Stempel attended 11
the University of California, Berkeley, where he received both an MA and a PhD in 12
Political Science; and 13
WHEREAS, John Dallas Stempel joined the United States Foreign Service in 1965, 14
serving three tours in Africa sandwiched around time in Washington; and 15
WHEREAS, John Dallas Stempel moved to Tehran, Iran, in 1975 to serve as 16
Deputy Chief of the political section and later Chief during the countdown to the 1979 17
Iranian Revolution. In 1981, he published his firs t scholarly book, Inside the Iranian 18
Revolution, while he was Diplomat -in-Residence at the United States Naval Academy; 19
and 20
WHEREAS, after a 24 -year career in the Foreign Service, John Dallas Stempel 21
began a second career as a professor of International Af fairs at the Patterson School of 22
Diplomacy and International Commerce at the University of Kentucky; and 23
WHEREAS, in 1993, Dr. Stempel was named Director of the Patterson School. 24
During his directorship, he revised and released a 2nd edition of Inside the Iranian 25
Revolution and wrote Common Sense in Foreign Policy (2008), which he joked would be 26
"a very short book"; and 27
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WHEREAS, John Dallas Stempel stepped down as Director of the Patterson School 1
in 2003 and retired as a professor in 2013; and 2
WHEREAS, John Dallas Stempel served as a trustee of Kentucky's Georgetown 3
College and, on multiple occasions, lectured at Oxford University as part of the College 4
and University's joint program. He was also a member of the New York Council of 5
Foreign Relations and a longtime member of Rotary International; and 6
WHEREAS, John Dallas Stempel died peacefully surrounded by fam ily in hospice 7
care on January 8, 2025, at the age of 86, having lived a full and joyous life as an 8
accomplished diplomat, university dean, professor, writer, intellect, husband, father, and 9
grandfather; and 10
WHEREAS, John Dallas Stempel's mischievous wit, loving charm, and voracious 11
appetite for life will be profoundly missed, and his life of accomplishment and service is 12
worthy of public recognition; 13
NOW, THEREFORE, 14
Be it resolved by the General Assembly of the Commonwealth of Kentucky: 15
Section 1. The Transportation Cabinet shall designate Kentucky Route 1973 in 16
Fayette County, from the intersection with Kentucky Route 922 (mile point 19.205) to 17
the intersection with United States Route 25 (mile point 22.346) as the "Dr. John Dallas 18
Stempel Memorial Highway" and shall, within 30 days of the effective date of this 19
Resolution, erect appropriate signs denoting this designation. 20