By CAMERON GORDAN, Student Reporter
A man and a woman fall in love and get married. The man is in the Army and gets stationed in Germany.
The woman gets a job for the Army and Air Force Exchange Service and moves to Germany with him. Immediately after marrying, the couple has to pack up and move thousands of miles away from all of their friends and family. It was difficult for a 19-year-old woman to deal with.
Born in Pratt, Kansas, and raised in Kiowa, Pam Hess has led a full life. From living in Germany to counseling middle school students and doing secretarial work, Hess has had a wide array of life experience.
Hess attended South Barber High School in Kiowa. She was involved in show choir, school plays, forensics and the yearbook team.
She was also a basketball and tennis player. After graduating from South Barber in 1982, she attended Dodge City Community College, obtaining her associate’s degree in 1984.
At Dodge City, Hess was a part of the yearbook staff, the newspaper staff and the student senate.
A CHANGE OF SCENERY
Pam and her husband, Tony, decided to get married after Tony had gotten his orders to go to West Germany. The idea of being apart for a long period of time was not something the two wanted to think about.
One of Pam Hess’s greatest struggles in life was walking onto the airplane to meet her husband in Germany. Hess hugged her family goodbye.
“I literally had to force one foot in front of the other to overcome my fear,” she said.
Hess said she knew her future was with Tony Hess on the other side of the ocean. While this was scary, she said, she also found the opportunity to live overseas with the man she loved exciting.
When she arrived in Germany, she was overcome by the fear her husband wouldn’t be able to pick her up at the airport. When she didn’t see him, she walked around for hours until she finally spotted the only person in the airport wearing a red ball cap. She immediately knew it was Tony.
The couple lived in Germany for three and a half years. When Pam Hess returned to the states, she worked in a nursing home and operated a restaurant with her parents. After that, she worked at Tucker’s Farm Store for a short time until finding a job as a paraprofessional in the South Barber school district. She worked there for 11 years.
She said she found her work to be meaningful. She said she had a student who came to her as an eighth grader who had a fifth-grade math level. By the end of the year, Hess had helped the student catch up to the eighth-grade level.
STARTING A FAMILY
Hess had her first son, Lane, in 1995. Her second son, Dalton, was born in 2001. Hess says they are her pride and joy.
Dalton Hess said his favorite thing about his mom is how caring she is and how she’ll do anything for people.
“People come up to me and tell me, ‘Your mom helped me out,’ and I never even knew about it,” Dalton Hess said.
He describes her as a good Christian and a good cook.
Eventually, Hess moved to Alva and got her current job working as a clerical administrative assistant for the Charles Morton Share Trust Division of Nursing at Northwestern. She said she enjoys this job because she likes interacting with people. She loves educating youth as well, so she gets the best of both worlds, she said.
When Dalton Hess was in high school, his mother became friends with some of the other parents in his class and on his athletic teams. One of them was Teri Warren.
Warren and Hess met when Warren’s daughter went to a dance with Dalton. They hit it off and have been friends ever since.
“She would do anything for anybody,” Warren said of Hess. “She does things for other people and expects nothing in return.”
Dylan Whitely, a teammate of Dalton Hess’s in high school, also says Hess is a positive person.
“She’s genuine and really cares about you,” Whitely said.
Hess makes goodie bags for her friends and coworkers around holidays and special events, Whitely said. He added that he admires her work ethic and thoughtfulness.
“When I was in high school, there was an away game a few hours away for football I wanted to attend,” Whitely said.
“Since most of my friends weren’t going or were on the football team, I couldn’t carpool. At the last minute, Hess heard about it and picked me up. She and Tony drove me to the game, and it was a great time.”
One of Hess’s friends for years, Ginger Smith, also praised Hess’s generosity. The two met through working at Northwest Family Services. Hess was a receptionist, and Smith was a counselor. They’ve been friends for seven years.
Hess said this about how she lives her life: “My bucket list is to get through tomorrow. I live each day as it comes. I put my faith in the Lord to carry me through each day, and I put my faith in what the future will bring through him.”
