Stuart Redman

Stuart "Stu" Redman, called "East Texas" by his friend Glen Bateman, is a main character who first appears in Chapter 1 of the Complete and Uncut Edition of The Stand by Stephen King. A "strong, silent" type, he is the main heroic character of the novel and most subsequent adaptations. He is the first person in the novel to encounter Captain Trips who proves to be immune. He is likely in part based on King's adopted elder brother, David Victor.

Under the Four Great Races hypothesis, he represents the "Red," or indigenous Americans.

Backstory
Stuart Redman was born and raised in Arnette, Texas, a small town in east Texas north of Houston. Small as it may have been in his childhood in the 1950s and '60s, it is even smaller now due to the closing or shrinking of the two factories that were its main industries.

Stu was the eldest of three brothers, ahead of Bryce and Dev Redman. His father was a dentist who died when Stu was seven, and after that, his mother worked as a waitress and raised her sons alone. Stu began working at about age 10 at stockyards for minimum wage, having lied about his age. Around the same time, Dev died of pneumonia.

Stu played football in high school and was good enough there was a chance he could get a scholarship. He was encouraged by his mother, who referenced Eddie Warfield, a local hero and success story who had been a star quarterback. However, when she died of uterine cancer just before Stu graduated, he went to work at one of Arnette's only industries - a calculator factory - so he could raise Bryce, who would graduate college and move to Minnesota.

After Bryce graduated high school, Stu joined the Army and served in Vietnam, then returned to Arnette and the calculator factory. He was happily married for 18 months until his wife also died of uterine cancer.

On the evening of June 16, 1990, Stu is one of the few people still working in the calculator factory, where most of the business was being lost to Taiwan. He has given up all hope of ever leaving Arnette.

Story Arc
Stu is one of the six witnesses to the end of the Flight of the Campions, and in a sense, he is the first, because the other five - Bill Hapscomb, Norm Bruett, Tommy Wannamaker, Hank Carmichael and Vic Palfrey - are too preoccupied with talking to notice Charles Campion's Chevy slowly swerving down Number 93. Stu notices, and he shuts off the pumps moments before the Chevy crashes into them. (Chapter 1)

Complete and Uncut Edition

 * Chapter 1 - first appearance; witnesses Charles Campion crashing into Hapscomb's Texaco
 * Chapter 3 - referenced