Remembering Yo Bestgen

Yolande "Yo" Bestgen during her leadership at InterHab

InterHab is sad to report about the passing of Yolande "Yo" Bestgen, our friend, our association's leader from 1987 to 1993, and a nationally known advocate for persons with disabilities and community service organizations. 

She has traveled far and wide since she moved on from here, but she remained a friend of many of us, and a friend of this organization.

Yo gathered and synthesized the ideas, and the inspiration and dedication of the community service movement in Kansas, and, as much as anyone, invented the association we are a part of today.

She helped engineer the reputation that our predecessors developed in the Statehouse both in terms of tenacity, and collaborative spirit as well. It is not too strongly stated to say that during Yo’s years and the years that followed her tenure, she, through the association she led, helped shape every policy issue that counted for persons with intellectual and developmental disabilities and for the organizations which grew from the grassroots of Kansas compassion to serve those persons and their families in need.

Not everyone today working in the I/DD field may have known Yo or her role in nurturing our roots, but as we think about this good woman – whether or not you knew her – we should now think about her legacy, which has now been passed on to us.

Keep Yo's friends and families in your prayers, that they find comfort in their memories of her, her work, her heart and her legacy.