Stanley L. Klos

Stanley Yavneh "Stan" Klos (born January 18, 1954), a former Italian basketball player,^[1] businessman, and historical preservationist. Klos was a U.S. Senate GOP Nominee who challenged Robert C. Byrd for the West Virginia seat in 1994. In 2011 he married Naomi Yavneh Klos, Ph.D. and changed his middle name from "Louis" to "Yavneh," his wife's maiden name. The couple reside in New Orleans, where Dr. Naomi Yavneh Klos is the Director of the Loyola New Orleans University Honors Program.

Klos was born in New York City, New York to Dr. Louis A. Klos, founder of the National Catholic Business Education Association, and Eileen Hundertmark. Klos became interested in historic preservation in his early teens acquiring antiques at flea markets in the 1960s. In the 1970s he turned his pursuits to classic automobiles, in the 1980s preserving historic properties threatened by demolition, and in the 1990s acquiring, researching, and exhibiting historic ephemera.

Historic preservationist

In the 1980s and 1990s, Klos began preserving historic properties, eventually accumulating 32, including: 1774 Revolutionary War Tavern, Millstone, NJ; 1790 Imlay Mansion, Allentown, NJ;^[2] 1845 McCullough Mansion and Estate, Ohio County, WV;^[3] 1870 Coachman Estate, tabby construction, Cedar Key, Florida; 1887 Spring Lake Hotel, Spring Lake, NJ;^[4] 1887 Presbyterian Stone Church, Carnegie, PA,^[5] 1870 Adams County Court House Annex Building Gettysburg, PA;^[6] 1898 Edinburg Village, West Windsor, NJ;^[7] 1904 Victoria ^[8] Vaudeville Theater, Wheeling, WV;^[9] 1904 Mason Building, Carnegie, PA; 1917 Honus Wagner Home,^[10] Carnegie, NJ; University Place, Princeton, NJ; 1915 West Virginia Bank Building, ten-story terra cotta, Wheeling, WV.^[11]

In the 1980s, as a real estate entrepreneur, he acquired RE/MAX of Pennsylvania n/w expertly managing a marketing mix that increased yearly commission revenue from $240K to $36 million in 12 years. As a Regional Owner, he was an integral part of the executive mastermind that expanded RE/MAX into the world’s largest real estate entity.

In the 1990s, Klos began collecting historical documents, and placed these primary sources online at hundreds of URLs named after their notable subjects or authors, such as (benjaminfranklin.org), (fortpitt.org), (worldwarII.org). These documents were re-formed into award-winning exhibits that are featured at museums, universities, and special events all across the United States.^{[12][13][14][15][16]}

Stan has keynoted numerous special events including the Franklin D. Roosevelt American Heritage Center Museum’s grand opening and the 2003 re-entombment of First Lady Martha & President Samuel Huntington. His work has appeared in hundreds of print and digital publications including History Channel's Brad Meltzer's Decoded, The Declaration of Independence, U.S. News & World Report 2006 cover story, “Washington? Get In Line" & the Discovery Channel’s “Unsolved History: Plots To Kill Lincoln.”

In 2004, Klos, as a board member of the James Monroe Foundation, proposed that JMF acquire and restore the family farm and birthplace of President James Monroe. On April 4, 2005, the County of Westmoreland signed a 99-year lease with the foundation, and Klos was named Chairman of the James Monroe Birthplace Commission.^[17] Under the stewardship of James Monroe Foundation's President G. William Thomas, archaeologists from the College of William & Mary began the site study for restoration in 2006.^[18]

Klos was co-founder of The James Monroe Scholarship Award established in 2001 by the James Monroe Foundation.^[19] The award is an annual essay contest for juniors and seniors enrolled in a public, private or home-school high school programs. All 1st-, 2nd- and 3rd-place essays are posted online at jamesmonroe.org.^[20]

Klos is the co-founder of Dinosaur Safaris, Inc., in Shell, Wyoming.^[21][22] The company is headed by paleontologist Bob Simon. Under Simon's stewardship, four fully articulated dinosaurs–Camarasaurus, Stegosaurus, Diplodocus, and Camptosaurus–have been discovered.^[23]

Authorial activities

President Who? Forgotten Founders^[24] is a landmark work that unravels the complex birth of the U.S. Presidency ^[25] while providing captivating biographies on four Presidents of the Continental Congress and ten Presidents of the United States in Congress Assembled serving before George Washington from 1774- 1788.^[26] Peppered with pre-1789 letters, resolutions, treaties, and laws signed as President of the United States, the book relies heavily on primary sources as proofs the office existed before 1789.^[27] Who was the first President of the United States? ^[28] Happy Birthdays USA^[29] answers the question; When is the true birthday of the United States of America? The book asks the readers to open their minds and discover a secret beginning that was conceived in a Philadelphia Tavern, delivered in a NYC Tavern, and cradled in a renovated City Hall. The USA Founding was a complicated but most miraculous birth. This U.S. Founding Handbook completely documents the nation's birth.^[30]

America's Four Republics: The More or Less United States^[31] Unfolds the complex 15-year U.S. Founding period revealing, for the first time, four distinctly different United American Republics: 1) United Colonies of North America: 13 British Colonies United in Congress was founded by 12 colonies on September 5, 1774; 2) The United States of America: 13 Independent States United in Congress was founded by 12 states on July 2, 1776; 3) The United States of America: A Perpetual Union was founded by 13 States on March 1, 1781, with the enactment of the first U.S. Constitution, the Articles of Confederation; 4). The United States of America: We the People was formed by 11 states on March 4, 1789 ( North Carolina and Rhode Island joined in November 1789 and May 1790, respectively), with the enactment of the U.S. Constitution of 1787.

Virtualology

Virtualology.com, a website that hosts historical documents, art, natural history research and biographies, was created by Klos. It hosts a copyrighted, edited version of Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography under its FamousAmericans.net website.^[32] Virtualology created an online educational venue where students published their work on the appropriate World Wide Web sites.

The Virtualology Project, founded in 1999, was designed with its own search engine, Evisum.com^[33] and coupled it with an online research model that included over 7,500 unique URL addresses of notable individuals (GaiusJuliusCaesar.com), events (BattleofYorktown.com), places (HimalayaMountains.com) and things (thedeclarationofindependence.org). In 1999, this enabled visitors to merely type the researched name into any browser, yielding a Virtualology educational site. These educational sites were organized into five virtual museums and one virtual library. The distinctive twist was that each domain name became an exclusive student-publishing web site. Student submissions were presented through their teachers and routed directly to the individual sites either to the URLS' editing sponsors or to Virtualology Editors. Editing sponsors were educators from a variety of educational institutions including museums, libraries, foundations, universities, and historical societies who became responsible for their URL’s content. Virtualology created an environment where students published their work on URLS named for the topic of their research. 13 months after Virtualology's launch USA Today voted it as one of its “Hot Sites”.^[34]

Politics

As 1992-1994 West Virginia Republican State Committee  Finance Chairman, he turned around an under performing Republican State Political Committee by completely changing its business model and strategy. Grew annual contributions by 750%. As1994 Republican Nominee U.S. Senate - won the West Virginia Republican Party's nomination for U.S. Senate after defeating physician Arthur R. Gindin in the primary 61% to 39%. Campaigned as a "sacrificial lamb" against Robert C. Byrd participating in the Republican U.S. Senatorial Committee’s strategy to re-capture a majority in the United States Senate in 1994. Strategy was successful as Robert C. Byrd (D), although elected 290,495, 69% to Stan Klos (R), 130,441, 31%, spent $1,550,354 to Klos' $267,165.^[35] Additionally the Democratic Party invested over $1 million in that State's U.S. Senatorial Campaign to the Republican Party's $15,000. The GOP captured a majority in the U.S. Senate. The highlights of the campaign included the hiring of an actor to play Robert C. Byrd who toured in staged Statewide Debates when the incumbent refused Klos's invitation for a series of formal Senatorial Debates. The campaign also organized successful demonstrations against the Bill and Hillary Clinton National Health Care Bus as it traveled through West Virginia in the summer of 1994. Senator Byrd, while the bill was being debated on the Senate floor rose suggesting the brakes be put on approving National Health Care measure while the bus was completing its tour in WV. To Klos's credit, the campaign did not implement the "Death by a Thousand Cuts" plan proposed by strategists which was later acknowledged in speeches given and letters written by U.S. Senator Byrd.^[36]

• 1996 State Treasurer Nominee - recruited by WV State Committee Chairman Steve La Rose, Klos uncovered a scheme to circumvent the WV State Constitution's ban on investing State funds into equities during his campaign for State Treasurer. Klos challenged the “West Virginia Trust Fund” which was declared unconstitutional by the WV Supreme Court on February 25, 1997.^[37] The following year an amendment to the State Constitution allowing equity investments was proposed to the voters and passed by a 71 to 29 percent margin. The Wheeling News Register summed up Klos’s efforts in their Editorial "Klos Took A Stand Based on What is Right" ^[38]

Basketball

NCAA I career

• 1972-1974 St. Peter's College - Center/Forward
• 1975-1977 Idaho State University - Center/Forward

International Basketball Federation

Klos played for Italy's Amaro Harrys Bologna^[39][40] of the Italian Basketball Association.^[41] He also was the Captain of the United States Basketball Team which participated in European International Tournaments in 1979.,^[1][42]

References