Bob "Big Stef" Steffen, OH

Big Stef battles West Nile
By Shelly Whitehead
Post staff reporter
TERRY DUENNES/The Post
Bob “Big Stef” Steffen, who battles West Nile, proudly showed off his retirement cake recently.

To send messages, cards or flowers to Bob Steffen or donations to Big Stef, Inc.:

On the Web: www.bigstef.org

By mail: Big Stef, Inc., P.O. Box 1844, Newport, KY 41071

One of the biggest hearts in Northern Kentucky - a man whose Newport-based organization helps thousands of the needy and sick each Christmas - is now very sick himself after contracting the deadly West Nile virus.

Bob Steffen, the 68-year-old founder of the charitable group Big Stef, Inc., was diagnosed with the mosquito-borne virus last month about two weeks after he was found unconscious in his Newport home, relatives say.

Now, the well-known philanthropist is a patient in the same Highland Heights nursing home where he launched a simple holiday gift-giving tradition 21 years ago that has blossomed into a year-round charity.

This holiday season, more than 400 needy families and thousands of nursing home residents will receive gifts and parties from Steffen's non-profit group. But, for the first time since 1984, the organization's Santa-sized namesake won't be able to participate. Steffen is simply too sick, said his niece, Megan Steffen.

"He's been down with it for 5½ weeks. They thought at first it was a stroke," said Ms. Steffen, board secretary for Big Stef, Inc.

Three weeks ago, Ms. Steffen said a Utah-based lab confirmed that her uncle had West Nile virus. But, that wasn't all. Ms. Steffen said the 68-year-old former Campbell County Sheriff's deputy was also diagnosed with meningitis and five other viruses during his lengthy stay at St. Luke Hospital East in Fort Thomas.

For much of that time, Steffen was not speaking, walking or able to eat. Family members worried he might not make it. Then, about two weeks ago, he started coming around, Ms. Steffen said.

And of course, he wanted to know how his organization's holiday efforts were progressing. He was particularly concerned about the status of the annual Southgate House benefit in memory of his deceased brother, Tommy, which took place last weekend.

"He knew it was coming up. We hung a poster for it in his room. He kept asking about it," she said.

"We made about $4,800, which is a little lower than last year's with it. I kind of wonder if that had to do with the fact that Uncle Bob wasn't there this year. He was a big draw."

Though nearly everything about Bob Steffen has always been big and generous, his niece said the virus has burned up some of the heft on her famous uncle's frame, which once weighed in at more than 400 pounds. His size never seemed to hamper his swift pace, however, in building Big Stef, Inc. into an organization capable of charitable activities that are continuing through the help of its many volunteers.

Over the next several weeks, dozens of Big Stef's unpaid do-gooders will deliver holiday parties and gifts to residents at nine Northern Kentucky nursing homes. Some will come clothed as Santa himself, a light-hearted touch Steffen inaugurated in 1984 when he first passed out candy canes and gifts to his ailing mother, Clara, and other residents at Lakeside Place Nursing Home.

This year, as one of the residents of the same facility - now known as Northern Kentucky Care and Rehabilitation Center - Steffen will be on the receiving end of his own organization's good works for the first time.

"We keep telling him he can pick his own Santa to visit," Ms. Steffen said.

"There will be three Santas there - one for each floor. ... The residents really do look forward to it ... and appreciate it."

As do the hundreds of needy families each year who receive holiday baskets filled with about $150 worth of food and cupboard staples in the week before Christmas. Supplies for that undertaking are purchased with funds raised through a half-dozen annual Big Stef, Inc. benefit events, as well as annual membership dues paid by hundreds of participants in the organization.

At Coach's Corner, one of the Newport taverns where Steffen started raising money for gifts a decade ago, everybody knows the big guy with the bacon cheeseburger named after him on the menu. And today, everybody there worries about him, too, according to co-owner Midge Brewer.

"Everyone here is thinking about him. We have people come in every day and ask about him," Brewer said.

"We wish him well and we can't wait to see him back here having a cold Miller Lite again ... and a Big Stef burger. He's a wonderful person."