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Memorials
In Memory of
Sammye Stamper
who passed September 17, 2007,
after a decade of service to Michigan statewide planning for HIV/AIDS care
and prevention. Having retired as a community co-chair from the Michigan
HIV/AIDS Council in 2005, Sammye continued to serve on the Needs Assessment Committee. A
year ago, though failing in health, he traveled the state to take a leadership
role in conducting Open Forums for needs assessment in seven cities. This self
proclaimed "viral protagonist" helped lead Michigan's community planning process
as it developed into a national model.
Obituary for Sammye L. Stamper
http://www.legacy.com/Link.asp?I=LS000096003792X
There is a guest book on the site above.
Memorial Service Planned
The memorial service for Sammye Stamper will be on Wednesday, October 17th at
12:00 Noon, at the Unitarian Universalist Congregation on Old Mission Peninsula
at 6726 Center Road, Traverse City (See link to Yahoo Map below). The phone
number there is 231-947-3117. There will be a lunch reception after the service.
Please call Barb Wood at (734) 973-6066 for information on car pooling.
http://maps.yahoo.com/#mvt=m&gid1=16504970&q1=6726%20Center%20Road,%20Traverse%20City,%20MI&trf=0&lon=-85.57472&lat=44.782749&mag=3
The Viral Protagonist
from Winter 1998 issue of Michigan Quarterly
HIV Report
Sammye Stamper was diagnosed with AIDS shortly after moving to one of Michigan's
premier resort areas four years ago. His story, of his shock at diagnosis,
isolation from fear of stigma and brushes with death, is not unfamiliar to those
who gather at HIV/AIDS conferences, meetings and support groups. However, as a
white heterosexual male who gave up drugs more than a decade ago, his story is
perhaps unique in Traverse City.
With the help of his wife and a Wellness Networks Grand Traverse Area Inc.
support group, Stamper regained his will to live after surviving first a bad
reaction to medication, and then a couple of heart attacks about two years ago.
At that time he decided to attend a Wellness volunteer training. The training
included a panel of HIV-positive people. Arriving a day into the training and
still recovering from an angioplasty, he found himself participating on the
panel. Afterward, people thanked him for presenting a different perspective than
they had heard before. Over the next few months, Stamper met more of the people
involved in the community and got a better picture of the organization of
Wellness. "And I did find that I seemed to be active as a part of the
organization," he said.
Stamper felt the need to give back, and this provided the opportunity to do
something. He eventually became a member of the board of directors. In August
1996, one of his fellow board members asked Stamper to attend a Statewide
Persons Living with HIV/ AIDS Needs Task Force (Task Force) meeting and a
Statewide HIV/AIDS Care Council (SHACC) meeting in Lansing. Curious to see what
was going on in other regions, and having what he calls "a pretty keen interest
in the disease," Stamper went, and was invited back to both. At the second
meeting he attended, Stamper was nominated to be co-vice chair of SHACC, and was
re-elected to the post last June. The previous month, in what he describes as
the lack of eagerness by anyone else, Stamper had been elected chair of the
budget committee of the Task Force. "Being an activist, being vocal, I am a good
communicator," said Stamper. "I'll keep working and fighting this fight as I
can, and pretty much try to take guidance from the other PWAs (Persons Living
with AIDS). What I have progressed to doing on a statewide level has made me
much more effective on a local level."
More work to do
Reflecting on recent developments and looking toward the future of AIDS
prevention work, Stamper said, "It has been a strange, exciting, but tough year.
There's hope, but there's just so much work to do. "Even though people aren't
dying at the pace they were, people don't seem to understand that this does not
mean that they are not getting infected at an ever-increasing rate. Up north,
the attitude is,' it's just not a problem here,'" Stamper said.
Regardless of whether it is a problem or it isn't a problem yet, he
said the opportunity is still there to talk about prevention. "If we are in a
position to stave off and to limit and partially control this thing in our
northern region, we should be jumping on that." Stamper said. "And there are so
many models around the country that can be drawn from for prevention." Stamper
was eager to put to use what he had learned about prevention for rural areas. "I
think I'll be a lot more effective in my region this year," he said.
Along with all of the work Stamper does on the care side, he is also on the
Region 7 Community Planning Group (CPG) for prevention and represents the region
on the Statewide CPG. "For the people I do the work for, it's a good thing. I
get eager and creative, and I can put in the hours. And I am so much healthier
today because of my activism." However, Stamper is really not comfortable with
the label "activist." "A lot of people have a negative attitude toward that," he
said, "so I have adopted 'viral protagonist,' to try to advocate and champion a
cause." With the advent of the new treatments, Stamper fears that the future of
the HIV/AIDS cause will be primarily in civil rights issues, continuing to fight
against the stigma and discrimination. "I resent being relegated to a lower
class of individual than I feel I am," he said. "There was a time when if I
didn't have anger, I wouldn't have had any energy at all. But it's what you do
with your anger. Now. if I allow it to make me crazy and make other people crazy
that's a different issue." But, he explained, anger at the stigma and the
discrimination has provided the energy to keep going, to get motivated and get
involved. Stamper has what he describes as a really dark sense of humor, and it
is surely that sense of humor that has helped him get to where he is today.
Stamper will joke about the absurdity of the infection of an ingrown toenail
that almost killed him. And he will laugh about surviving the chemical
combinations of drugs that affront his body daily.
On the airwaves
So this very vocal self-proclaimed "viral protagonist'' carries on in the war
against AIDS. For over a year now, he has been doing a radio show. "Viral
Overload," broadcast over the local college radio station, provides Stamper with
an avenue to disseminate HIV/AIDS information in an entertainment setting. It is
primarily a music program. "We choose music that is lyrically potent with at
least 50 percent specific to HIV and AIDS," he said. "In addition, we supply
information, statistics, referral numbers, testing sites and answer questions
from the community regarding HIV." The program airs on WNMC, 90.7 FM in Traverse
City, where Stamper is the business director and rock music director. The
station reaches five counties. "It's a totally creative avenue, an opportunity
to make people comfortable," said Stamper. 'They tune in for music but receive
the messages. They are entertained and informed. I have collected a lot of
music that is specific to HIV." Stamper believes that the medium of music has a
special effect on how people receive the message. He also thinks they hear it
better. "We get people on both sides of the fence," said Stamper. "We do
challenge the community to think. It's just that our stuff is so good, they
can't turn it away." Another of his current projects is traveling around the
state to facilitate community forums sponsored by the Statewide Persons Living
with HIV/AIDS Needs Assessment Task Force. The forums give persons living with
HIV and AIDS the opportunity to speak out in a confidential setting about their
specific needs where they live.
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