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Stella Pedraza Arias passed on December 16, 2024. She was born on December 15, 1928 to Jose and Zapopan Pedraza. She is welcomed home by her parents, 3 sisters, her husband, Richard Arias and her son Ray Arias. Stella attended Bowie grade school and could not speak English. With a lot of work and sacrifice, she continued her education at Irving Middle School and Fox Tech High School. She was very studious. In her senior year, she was able to take shorthand dictation at over 200 words per minute and became her teacher’s secretary during her Office Practice class. Being a top student in her Office Practice class, she was selected to work at Joske’s of Texas. After graduation she met her one and only boyfriend. Richard and Stella married and later had 3 sons and 1 daughter. They were married for 65 years until Richard passed in 2014. Her youngest son, Ray, also passed in 2011. After graduation, Stella continued working at Joske’s until her first son, Robert, was born. Later, she started working at Kelly AFB and climbed the ladder to become the secretary to many Colonels. During her almost 35 years of service, she had 27 bosses and 2 deputies. Due to her exceptional work ethic, Stella served as secretary to the Commander of the Base. During her tenure of work, she received many awards for her excellent work. In fact, the first year that Kelly AFB implemented an award for “Outstanding Secretary”, she was the recipient. As she recalled this moment, hearing her name announced, she remained seated until the Colonel and Deputy told her “that’s you kiddo.” They had to help her up and walk her to the podium. With an emotional thank you, she accepted the award. That was quite an honor because there were close to 40,000 employees at that time. Stella and Richard were members of St. Matthew Catholic Church since the parish was founded in the late 1960’s. Stella always said that the church played an important role in her and her family’s life. Stella, along with her friend Lucy, founded the Confraternity of Our Lady of Guadalupe, known as the Guadalupanas. She served on pastoral council, was a greeter, a Eucharistic minister, and member of the choir. She served on the Bereavement ministry and both Stella and Richard served the post-hospital visitation ministry. She also participated in perpetual adoration and the Little Rock scripture study. Stella was also instrumental in the start of the ACTS ministry at St. Matthew. She was an ACTS director and served on Core. She felt it really strengthened her relationship with God. In one of the articles written about Stella she stated, “Christ has always been the center of my life, yet my life changed in many ways after my first ACTS retreat. I became much more aware of God’s unconditional love for me. His divine mercy and His compassion.” Stella is survived by her son Robert and his wife Nancy, Roger and his wife Di-Anna and daughter Cindy. She is also survived by 7 grandsons, 2 granddaughters and 5 great granddaughters. She is also survived by one sister, Marie and countless nieces and nephews. After her sisters passed, she became the Matriarch of all of their children.

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Stella Pedraza Arias

December 15, 1928 - December 16, 2024