By Richard Shank
Wednesday’s major topic of conversation on the streets of Hutchinson centered around the passing of Rusty Hilst. Wherever one went to the Chamber of Commerce luncheon, in restaurants or meetings, Rusty was described with words like revered, icon, legend, friend and a person of excellence, to name a few.
Rusty gave more than half a century of his life that encompassed 82 years as a beloved Mathematics teacher at Hutchinson High School. Also, along the way, he became an accomplished golfer, sports broadcaster and a friend to hundreds, if not thousands of Hutchonians.
In Dec. 2022, Rusty received a diagnosis of ALS, an incurable affliction sometimes known as Lou Gehrig’s Disease. On Thursday, a close friend and neighbor told the story that Rusty received the news in December in advance of Christmas, and chose not to inform his family and friends until after January 1, not wanting to affect their holiday season.
Former KWBW General Manager and civic activist Dan Deming knew Rusty as a child as they grew up in the same neighborhood in the Salt City and were classmates at Hutchinson High School.
“Hutchinson High has had a lot of teachers highly admired by their students, but I don’t know of anyone more respected for positively influencing their lives than Rusty Hilst,” Deming said. “Rusty and I were in the same high school graduation class. We enjoyed playing sports together and wound up sharing radio careers for some 30 years.”
“His life was devoted to covering local sports in a most personable and professional manner, commanding respect as he competed at the highest levels of golf and was always channeling young people to become productive, positive adults,” Deming continued.
Hutchinson CPA Russ Reinert knew Rusty as a parent of two children, John and Rochelle, who were his students.
“Mr. Hilst was a math teacher for our two children,” Reinert said. “He was a very patient man and took extra time to make sure his students grasped the subject he was teaching,” Reinert said. “He cared so much about his students. If an individual was having personal issues, Rusty took the student under his wing and did everything he could do to resolve the issue.”
“Mr. Hilst was highly respected by students, parents, and faculty,” Reinert continued. “Any time he saw me, he always asked how our children were doing in college and their workplaces. Rusty was absolutely a ray of sunshine to be around. I will miss him.”
Dan (Coach Nac) Naccarato knew Rusty as a neighbor and from the broadcast booth for Hutchinson High School football and basketball games, and dubbed him a well-read, deep thinker and caring listener.
“We were friends for 40 years,” Naccarato said. “He taught our son, Luke, and our daughter, Kylee, calculus at Hutch High. He brilliantly called their games play-by-play and consistently painted vibrant, verbal pictures.”
“Rusty is certainly among the best teachers, coaches, broadcasters and golfers any of us have ever known,” Naccarato continued.
When Nacarrato made a career change from the corporate world to join academia as an instructor at Hutchinson Community College, Rusty offered three suggestions.
—Trust your intuition.
—Build relationships with students.
—Learn to teach without using textbooks.
Ten years ago, Rusty invited Naccarato to join him on KWBW 1450 broadcasts of Hutchinson High School games.
“It was a wonderful experience broadcasting games with Rusty and Glen Grunwald. Our road trips were slices of Heaven,” Naccarato said. “We laughed a lot.”
“Thank God Rusty Hilst chose to live, work and play here in Hutchinson, Kansas, USA,” Naccarato concluded.
Late in life and following his diagnosis with ALS, Rusty penned a book entitled “Banana Man: My Adventurous Life,” a story of how determination, hard work and a positive attitude led to so much success in a variety of endeavors, including navigating a terminal illness. An online book review tells how Rusty recovered from rheumatic fever, which led him to take up golf, and now he is in the Kansas Golf Hall of Fame.
In college, he took no education courses, never intending to be a teacher, but now he is in the Kansas Teachers Hall of Fame. As a graduate student, he never attended a football game but went on to be an award-winning sports announcer.
Amazon marketed the book, and a comment on its website says it all in a few words. “A lifelong lover of books, it took the prod of an ALS diagnosis to get him to write one of his own.”
Anyone composing an epitaph for Rusty would have much to choose from.
A philosopher once said that when a person passes on, the most important thing people remember is how he or she treated people during their lifetime. In Rusty’s case, plenty of evidence exists that he left behind a path of goodness a mile long.
Perhaps, the epitaph chosen by the late Publisher Malcom Forbes would be fitting for Rusty Hilst: “While alive, he lived,” which are five words fitting for a Hutchinson legend, too.