Former longtime Junction City resident, Ruby Stevens, 85, died Thursday at in Topeka after a long battle with Alzheimers disease.

Her son Pev Stevens, Topeka, confirmed her death. He said she tried what could to make people aware of different social injustices, not just in Junction City, but around the world.  “And that was her main thing, is to try and keep the people informed and go from there.”

Ruby Stevens was credited with starting the annual Martin Luther King Jr. observance in Junction CIty with the Komomantyn Club at Junction City High School, and then coordinated the annual observance in the community for many years afterward.

Daphne Maxwell of Junction City noted that as a young girl she remembered Ruby Stevens teaching English classes at the high school, and that Ruby was instrumental in the starting of the Komomantyns. “And also in her movement of civil rights one of the first educators to actually bring the focus and the light of the black community in Junction City High School and the starting of the Komomantyns and African American studies for the students there at Junction City High School.” Maxwell noted she would also see Stevens in the community involved in the NAACP and the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. celebrations.

Maxwell noted Stevens made an impact in Junction City. “A tremendous impact on the black community, however I believe it was for all of Junction City.  She truly is a legacy in her own right. They say you stand on the shoulders of giants, we’re still walking on trails that she has blazed for all of us, but I just think it’s for the community of Junction City and surrounding communities as a whole.”