Fort Worth leader John Stevenson ‘always stayed involved’

John Stevenson, a former Fort Worth business and civic leader and a member of the City Council from 2003 to 2005, died Tuesday at 86.

Funeral services were pending at Thompson Harveson Cole Funeral Home. Mr. Stevenson, a retired vice president at the Robert M. Bass Group, had been battling congestive heart failure for several years, his family said.

“He told me, ‘You’re a good, strong Texas gal. You can do this job,’ ” Mayor Betsy Price said. “This is a big loss for Fort Worth. He always stayed involved. He loved Fort Worth. He was only interested in what was good for the city.”

Bill Boecker, president and CEO of Fine Line Diversified Development, a Bass company, called Mr. Stevenson a wonderful friend and business associate.

“His love of people, as well as animals, was boundless,” Boecker said. “He will be missed tremendously by everyone fortunate enough to have known him and of all that he did to make the Fort Worth community as special as it is.”

Mr. Stevenson was born May 17, 1930, in Cincinnati went on to graduate from Walnut Hills Public High School there.

He attended Harvard, where he was captain of the basketball team his senior year, and a member of the Harvard Varsity Club and the Hasty Pudding Club. He graduated with his bachelor’s degree in 1952, then earned an MBA in 1954.

In business school, he met Roxanna Louise Harrington of Worcester, Mass. They married June 25, 1954, and were together until her death in April 2010.

After college, he went to work for Champion Papers International in Cincinnati and six years later moved to Fort Worth to serve as vice president and general manager of Champion’s Crown Plastic Cup Co. and as vice president and southwestern division manager of DairyPak, Champion’s milk carton operation.

In 1974, Champion offered him a promotion that would have required leaving Fort Worth. Instead of accepting the promotion, he took a job as executive vice president of Continental National Bank, where he became president and chief operating officer.

In 1984, Robert Bass hired Mr. Stevenson to be vice president of the Robert M. Bass Group. He retired in July 2015.

Mr. Stevenson served on more than 50 boards, campaigns, bureaus, and councils. In 2001, he received the prestigious Exchange Club of Fort Worth’s Golden Deeds Award. He also worked to bring a downtown hotel and the Bureau of Printing and Engraving plant to Fort Worth, said his son Frank Earl Stevenson II of Dallas.

“He was the most authentic person I’ve ever known,” Frank Stevenson said. “He was absolutely without pretense. … He didn’t care what you did or where you came from.”

Survivors include sons John Mote Stevenson Jr. of Frankfurt, Ky., and David Barnes Stevenson of West Hartford, Conn.; two daughters, Amy Louise Stevenson of Beverly Hills, Mich., and Sarah Lee Stevenson Baird of New York City; 10 grandchildren; and one great-granddaughter.

This story was originally published November 23, 2016 at 3:27 PM with the headline "Fort Worth leader John Stevenson ‘always stayed involved’."