Essays From West of 98: An Iconic Citizen
I am taking a one-week pause in my ongoing series on creating jobs un rural communities. Stamford lost one of its most iconic citizens and biggest champions this past week. The great Fareed Hassen passed away at the age of 91. In a way, it is poetic to offer a tribute to this great man in the middle of a series on job creation. I do not know anyone who devoted more of their time and energy to local economic development in the last 50+ years than Fareed.
When I was a child, I knew Fareed as the owner of Hassen’s, one of the last old-time small-town department stores. He sold suits and western wear. He had an extensive women’s collection. He specialized in hard-to-fit sizes, which resulted in people coming in droves from Abilene and beyond to shop on the downtown square here in Stamford. If you knew Fareed, you never forgot him. Among other things, he was a consummate salesman. If he started in on a sales pitch, there were two options: say yes, or argue with him a while and eventually say yes anyway. Hassen’s was the only store I ever visited where my parents never got mad for me spending exponentially more money than they authorized. They would send me in for a pair of jeans and I would come out with three pairs of jeans and a new pair of boots. Fareed decided that is what I needed, and who was I to argue?
Fareed’s salesmanship was not limited to private enterprise. Nobody loved Stamford more or sold the merits of our community more passionately than Fareed. He sold Stamford to politicians. He constantly sought out grants. He tirelessly promoted our community to potential employers. He was instrumental in establishing Stamford’s industrial foundation in the 1970s and its economic development corporation shortly thereafter, when those were novel agencies in Texas. Years later, after he retired from the department store, he served as economic development director and simultaneously for a time as director of the Chamber of Commerce.
He served in capacities that were elected and unelected, known and anonymous, appreciated and thankless. He was a longtime director of the Texas Cowboy Reunion, but he also spent years selling around thousands of dollars in general admission tickets to the TCR on his own time, because he thought it would help attendance. He convinced businesses in Abilene to buy a book of tickets and then buy an extra book of tickets for underprivileged children. He sold a large portion of the tickets for the Stamford Art Foundation’s art raffle each year, not by asking people if they wanted to buy a ticket, but by contacting community members like myself to tell us he would come by later and pick up a check for our raffle tickets.
I’ve written in this space several times about our annual Christmas Day Dinner here in Stamford. Fareed delivered meals year after year, but he did something particularly unique. He would deliver meals to folks who had requested a delivery, but he would then make a request for additional meals and go take them to unknown members of the community who had not requested one, but he knew would benefit from the meal. Fareed Hassen lived a very full life, but the loss of community members like him leaves a special hole. They help in so many ways that they never mentioned or told anyone about. You only find out after the fact how many lives they impacted.
I have a whole book’s worth of stories about Fareed. If there was a Mount Rushmore for Stamford citizens, Fareed would be on it. It would be carved with his trademark sly grin. A few weeks ago, my sister ran across imagery from Fareed’s 1968 campaign for Mayor, in which he advocated for a “Better Stamford.” I had never seen this before, which was remarkable, because my campaign slogan and my ongoing theme for our work here in the community to build a “Better Stamford.” I felt honored that Fareed had beaten me to the idea 50 years before.
Fareed Hassen was a dear friend and I will miss him, like so many others in Stamford. But we can appreciate his impact on our community and we can be inspired by his decades of selfless service. Stamford was better because of Fareed Hassen, and as far as earthly legacies, that’s a pretty darn cool thing to say.
James Decker is the Mayor of Stamford, Texas and the creator of the West of 98 website and podcast. Contact James and subscribe to these essays at westof98.substack.com and subscribe to West of 98 wherever podcasts are found.