Meet Terryn Stagge

Terryn spent the first 5 years of her life in Bountiful Utah. She was born to Julie and Roger Hendrickson (also in our ward, in fact they live one house away from her) . She is the oldest of 6 kids, 3 boys and 3 girls. Terryn said when she was 16 years old her youngest brother Griffin was born; so she had lots of experience working with kids. She babysat and helped with their family's younger children quite a bit.

Terryn's family set up their permanent home in Kaysville Utah in the up-and-coming Hess Farm development. Terryn lived there until she graduated from Davis High School. When Terryn was young she enjoyed dancing. She was on Luv to Dance's (a dance studio still operating here in Kaysville) competition dance team in elementary and went on to be part of a small competition cheer team in Junior High.

In high school Terryn really liked hanging out with her friends. She also really enjoyed academics. She is a math girl. She really likes the black and white aspect of math. She took AP Calculus as a Junior and finished high school with a few other AP classes under her belt. She also participated in DECA (Distributive Educational Clubs of America) which is a business club. That really ended up being a good thing because Terryn liked to work.

She worked at the GAP in high school. She enjoyed working and the independence it provided. In fact she liked it so much that during her senior year of high school she took work release and was working there at least every other day. She was full on into the mall working culture (enough to know she doesn't want her kids working at the mall in high school).

There was another employee at the mall; his name was Nick Stagge. He was the manager of Zumiez. Terryn knew who he was but they never really hung out together. Imagine her surprise when two weeks before leaving for college at USU he came into the GAP and asked her out. They had a few days before Terryn headed to USU.

Terryn attended USU for one fun semester. She transferred up to Old Navy in Logan. Nick would come up and go out with her to dances and she would come down and hang out with him. By the end of the semester she decided she liked him enough that she would transfer to Weber and live at home, seeing what would happen in their relationship. Once she came back she worked again at the mall at Anchor Blue and Nick continued managing Zumiez and they had a lovely mall romance. Complete with lunch dates!

They were engaged by May and married in August. But Terryn was tired of the mall atmosphere. Retail still paid pretty well and offered her the flexibility of schedule for school so she took a new job at Pier One. While working there, she got pregnant and had their first baby. A beautiful little girl named Parker. At that time, Terryn quit working and stayed home with her baby.

By this time Nick was now the district manager for Zumiez and was doing well. He didn't really plan to pursue a degree but Terryn felt strongly he should. So on her urging he started taking night courses and got his degree in Business Management.

When Parker was 16 months old, a tragedy happened in their family. Terryn says it’s still so traumatic she doesn't really like to think about it much. Parker was a pretty good little toddler. She wasn't a climber or overly curious but once while Terryn was in the other room a dresser and TV fell on Parker. She ended up with a skull fracture and traumatic brain injury and was life-lighted to Primary Children's Hospital.

There Parker would spend two weeks in a coma. The hospital told her that the severity of the brain injury couldn't be determined until the brain swelling peaked and came down. Nick and Terryn were told this would happen within 24-48 hours of the injury so with a bolt in poor little Parker's head to monitor the swelling, they waited. After 10 days the swelling still hadn't subsided.

During this time prayers and fasts were offered and blessing were given to Parker and to Nick and Terryn. One particular blessing was so precious and spiritual this it gave them tremendous comfort. It was given by their Bishop to Parker. In the blessing Parker was told that the Savior had been in Parker’s room and had put His hands on her and whatever the Savior touched would be healed. They were also told that spirits from those who had gone before and spirits that would yet come were there with her. Parker was told that healing would come but they would need to be patient.

Nick and Terryn hung on to these blessings and hoped for a miracle. They were told there was a possibility she would never walk or talk again because of the brain injuries, which included areas to the sides, back and frontal lobe of the brain. After 10 days a scan was performed and they realized that Parker had developed a permanent blood clot in her brain that had caused the swelling to not recede. After 2 weeks though the swelling was down and Parker woke up. After she woke up, she spent another few weeks at the hospital.

Parker did recover as best as she has been able to. She had to re-learn to walk, talk, eat, roll over, everything all over again. It was like they had a 16 month new born baby. How grateful Terryn was that she was able to stay home and help Parker heal. Helping Parker recover took a lot of time. Even now as Parker learns in school she struggles with some things probably due to the brain injury. Because of Terryn being at home, she is able to give Parker the help she needs in keeping up with her classes and her homework.

Interestingly enough when Parker gained words back she would point to pictures of angels and say, « Mimi. » Then when Terryn was pregnant with their second child, Parker would point to her tummy and say, « Mimi. » The Stagge's thought this was interesting but didn't know why she did it. Then 2 ½ years after Parker was born they welcomed their second child into their home, a beautiful little girl they named Maisie. Parker started calling her Mimi right away and to this day, that's her nickname. Terryn wonders if during that time in the hospital one of those who visited and comforted Parker was her little sister Maisie.

A few years later, the Stagge's welcomed their 3^rd child into their home. A beautiful baby boy they named Hendrix. By this time, Nick was building the training program for Skullcandy and was traveling a lot. Then GoPro came along and offered him a job with their company. He would have to move to California for a year and travel over half the time but then they would send him back to Utah. That didn't sound like a great set up with kids and school so the plan was for Terryn to stay in Syracuse, sell their home and start building their current home in Kaysville.

Well, before they could even put their house on the market a man knocked on their door. He told them he was looking to buy houses for a real estate agency in the area that wanted to convert the houses to rental properties. He wondered if they might be interested in selling their house. It was like a house selling fantasy! The man asked them to submit a price they wanted to sell for. They did and the company even countered above their asking price. The catch was, they had to close and get out of the house right away. Being now homeless Nick and Terryn decided they would all go live with Nick in his studio apartment in San Francisco for the summer. Imagine that, a family of 5 in a studio apartment. Needless to say, they didn't spend a lot of time in the apartment.

After the summer was over, Terryn and the kids moved into Nick's parents while Woodside finished their home. Then they moved into our neighborhood. Shortly thereafter Terryn became pregnant with their 4^th child, Theo. Also as a great blessing, a few months after Nick moved back to Utah a company named Experticity offered him a job that included regular working hours and no traveling! The Stagge's took it gratefully.

One day when her kids are older and all in school, Terryn would love to finish her schooling and become a nurse.

Terryn loves living in our neighborhood and just like everyone else, is sad to hear that the ward is splitting. She can't think of a street or area she doesn't want to be in our ward. She loves living in Kaysville again and says it just feels like home.

I asked Terryn if she had any advice the grown up Terryn would give to her younger self and this is the quote she gave me, «Work hard, stay humble and be nice to people. » I think that quote sums Terryn up perfectly. We are so lucky to get to know Terryn. Hopefully you will all take that opportunity.