HHS alumni starting fund to honor Lyle Welch

A group of Holton High School alumni is asking fellow Wildcat graduates to honor a three-time HHS teacher, coach and guidance counselor who helped shape their lives by making financial contribu­tions to the Holton High School Alumni Association’s scholarship fund.

When Lyle Welch, who had served 26 of his 35 years in educa­tion at Holton High, died in August, some of Welch’s former students noticed that no designation had been made for memorial con­tributions in his obituary.

Today, a group of HHS alumni, including Class of 1963 member Daryl Roller, is requesting memo­rial contributions to the alumni as­sociation’s scholarship fund in memory of Welch and his wife, Wilma. Contributions are now be­ing accepted through the Jackson County Community Foundation, it was reported.

“We want to do it for Mr. Welch,” Roller, a resident of Lenexa, said of his former teacher, coach and counselor. “We’ve been in contact with his family on this, and they’re in favor of what we’re doing.”

Following a stint in the Army Air Corps during World War II, Welch earned bachelor’s and mas­ter’s degrees from Kansas State University before embarking on a teaching career. Roller noted that Welch had three separate teaching stints at Holton during a career that also included teaching and coach­ing work at Whiting and Corning, among other schools.

“I always wondered why he was here three different times. I won­dered if he went for a better job,” Roller said.

Welch’s first sabbatical from Holton High School saw him going to work for the Kansas State De­partment of Education, where he helped establish the high school guidance counseling program for Kansas schools. His second break from teaching, coaching and coun­seling in Holton came for the com­pletion of an education specialist’s degree, which he attained in 1965 at Michigan State University.

“He was a basketball coach, he was a guidance counselor, he taught math all those times. He never forgot us,” Roller said of Welch.

During his teaching years, Welch “devoted his working life to those he taught, coached and served as guidance counselor” for, said Dennis L. Hilgenfeld, Roller’s fel­low member of the Class of 1963.

“He carefully guided all of us toward a future beyond high school in line with our latent talents and interests,” Hilgenfeld said. “His interest and passion during the final years of my high school experience challenged me to reach for what, at the time, I believed was beyond my reach.”

Ditto Roller, who said that while a student at HHS, he was unsure what kind of career path to follow once his high school days came to a close. Welch told Roller to consider the printing program at Kansas State College of Pittsburg (now Pittsburg State University), and Welch, who noted that all his classmates were going to colleges and universities nearer Holton, “had never even heard of Pitts­burg,” he said.

Roller left KSC to work for the Junction City Daily Union newspaper at a time when tensions were rising in Viet­nam, and he was drafted into the military for four years. Upon his discharge, he went back and com­pleted a degree in printing man­agement, then worked for 27 years at Ward/Kraft in Fort Scott before a 10-year stint at Fort Scott Commu­nity College, retiring in 2010 as FSCC’s director of development.

Roller never forgot Welch’s in­fluence on him, recalling a natural enthusiasm that Welch would place on whatever he was trying to teach his students.

“Whatever he was teaching, he would never talk in any kind of a droning way,” Roller said. “What­ever he was talking about, in his voice, there was always excitement, whether he was talking about math, sports or the alumni reunions.”

He was proud to note that Welch never forgot his students, either. Lyle and Wilma Welch also saw their three sons graduate from HHS — Robin in 1971, David in 1973 and Kevin in 1979 — and even af­ter his retirement, Welch was faithful about returning to the HHS alumni banquets.

“He came to his last one in 2008,” Roller said of Welch. “He was 83 years old.”

Welch died Aug. 19 at the Vet­erans Home in Cameron, Mo., two years after his wife died. Upon reading Welch’s obituary, Roller said he and others were surprised to note that no mention was made about memorial contributions, so they contacted Welch’s family.

“We told them, ‘For someone who was here for 26 years for the students here, we need to do something,’” Roller said.

Now, Welch’s former students who want to make a contribution and “pay back and pay forward” to future HHS graduates may do so by making checks payable to the Jack­son County Community Founda­tion, P.O. Box 175, Holton, KS 66436. Donors are asked to note in the memo section of their checks that the donation is for the “Lyle and Wilma Welch Memorial,” and donations are tax deductible under ID 48-0972106, it was noted.

All donations in memory of the Welches will be deposited in the HHS Alumni Scholarship Fund. For more information, e-mail Mike McManigal at mmcmani­gal@dsbks.com