‘Goodnight everybody’: Remembering renowned Hutch educator, golfer, broadcaster
If you’ve lived in Hutchinson for an extended period, you probably have heard the name Rusty Hilst or at least heard his voice.
Maybe you were one of the many people who say they are lucky to have known him.
That’s because the things Hilst was most passionate about — teaching, sports broadcasting and golfing — he did for at least five decades each and with the best of them, gaining accolades in all those areas.
Russell Allen Hilst, who went by Rusty, died peacefully at his home on June 17 after a 2 1/2-year battle with bulbar-onset Lou Gehrig’s disease. He was 82.
He was preceded in death by a sister. He is survived by four sisters, two brothers, and many nieces, nephews, grand-nieces and grand-nephews, his obituary says.
A memorial service is planned for 11 a.m. June 28 at Our Redeemer Lutheran Church, 407 E. 12th Ave. in Hutchinson.
“When I think of Rusty Hilst at Hutchinson High School, you can pick whatever superlative you’d like,” Ronn Roehm, Hutchinson High’s principal from 1998 to 2019, said in a video done by the district for Hilst’s retirement in 2022. “Legend, icon, face on Mount Rushmore, whatever you want to pick, it certainly fits Rusty Hilst, as his impact on Hutch High and the students here and the community here has been profound.”
Hilst taught math, including calculus, for 54 years at HHS. A few years after he started teaching, his friend and then-HHS basketball coach Dan Justice asked Hilst to fill in for a sick broadcaster, Hilst told The Hutchinson News. He added that he agreed, but only planned to keep score until it was 8-8 at halftime and he realized he needed to help fill in some air time.
That was 1969.
The next season he started doing HHS football too. He then added Hutchinson Community College basketball and football.
He was the voice of all of those until signing off in 2019.
“Hutchinson High School, like so many high schools around the state, is really special because of the kids,” Hilst said during a ceremony honoring him at an HHS basketball game where he was given framed No. 1 HHS Salthawks basketball and football jerseys with his name on them. “And while I appreciate all the accolades very much for broadcasting, it’s been my hobby. If you want to hear me get passionate sometime, talk to me about education and working with young people. That’s what it is all about.”
Hilst saw many highs and lows in the two sports, but nothing was more dramatic then the HHS football lows from the early ‘90s compared to the highs of the 2000s under well-known coach Randy Dreiling.
The team was 8-54, including two winless seasons, between 1991 and 1997, which was Dreiling’s first year. The team lost 18 games from 2000-2012, when it won seven state championships, including six in a row. Dreiling was there to present Hilst with his football jersey; the two remained friends and spoke even after Dreiling left at the end of the 2013 season.
“He’s just a wonderful person, a great friend and I am very, very glad to know him,” Dreiling said in the retirement video.
Hilst also covered other HHS basketball state championships and HCC national championships.
In the video, Brooks Armstrong, a former student turned elementary teacher, said that if anyone could duplicate the way Hilst inspired students, “you’re gonna be one of the greats.”
Besides inspiring students, he also helped others, including encouraging Dan Naccarato, known as Coach Nac, after he left working in the corporate world with supermarkets Dillons and Kroger to teach at HCC.
He told Naccarato to trust his intuition, build relationships with students and learn to teach without using a textbook.
“His advice continues to resonate in my mind every day,” Naccarato wrote on Thursday in a reflection he shared with The Wichita Eagle. “Rusty is certainly among the best teachers, coaches, broadcasters, and golfers any of us have ever known.”
Hilst invited Naccarato to broadcast alongside him in 2014, which he reluctantly agreed to, but then stayed on past Hilst’s retirement in 2019.
He called their road trips for away games “slices of heaven” as they would discuss life on their drives.
Becoming an educator
Hilst had already earned a master’s degree in political science and was working on his Ph.D. when a former principal at Hutchinson High asked his father if his son wanted a job, according to The Hutchinson News.
Hilst, who had planned to be a political pollster, decided he had had enough of being told what to study, The News reported. He took the job.
Avid golfer
Already an avid golfer who hit the winning shot to clinch an HHS title during his senior year in 1960, Hilst started coaching golf at the school soon after that.
In 1974, he set the Carey Park Golf Course record with a score of 60. A plaque is on the clubhouse wall to this day. The record still hasn’t been beaten.
He coached for decades, leading the team to state titles in 1974 and 1995, The News reported. The team would have won another state title in the late 1990s, but Hilst noticed that a player had submitted the wrong score. The actual score was higher, but the team would have won a state title with either. Hilst changed it to the higher score, which disqualified the player and dropped the team from first to fourth, The News reported.
“You always do what is right,” he told The News.
Diagnosed with ALS
Hilst’s last time on the course was around January 2024, a little more than a year after he was diagnosed with ALS in December 2022.
ALS is a progressive neurodegenerative disease. There is no cure.
He could only make it seven holes because of fatigue, but got a birdie on the last hole, according to his youngest sibling, Kent, who golfed with him that day at Prairie Dunes Country Club.
“Not many people can say they birdied the last hole they ever played,” Kent said.
A GoFundMe was set up to help with medical expenses. It raised just over $122,000 of a $125,000 goal.
Hilst’s struggle with ALS and the positive attitude he maintained throughout are documented on the “Rally for Rusty Hilst” Facebook page that was set up after his diagnosis. It included the moments just before he passed.
Caregiver reads email to Hilst
Mel Dower had worked with Hilst at HHS. When she saw that he needed help being cared for, allowing him to stay in his home, she reached out and helped ensure he had the care he needed.
She sat next to him and typed up an email she was getting ready to send to his siblings.
It said how she had known him for 30 years, but caring for him the last year had been very meaningful to her. They talked about life and how to best live it.
“It has been one of the greatest privileges of my life to help care for Rusty, he is an extraordinary man,” she wrote in the email, which was shared on the Facebook page.
She talked about his brilliance as a teacher and the “kind comments” he had made as a broadcaster about her sons when they took the field or court.
“Rusty’s legacy is etched in the lives of those he taught, cheered on, and loved. He gave his heart to his community in a way few people do,” she wrote. “ALS is a cruel disease, but it has not taken Rusty’s spirit. Day after day, I have watched him meet the challenges with grace, grit, and an unwavering faith. Even in his most difficult moments, there is still a spark in his eyes that speaks of a life well-lived and a soul still shining.
“We are nearing the end of this battle and I want you all to know my gratitude for the time I have had with Rusty.”
She read the email to Rusty and told him he fought ALS with so much courage that he didn’t need to keep fighting.
“He passed soon after,” she told his siblings.
Naccarato, writing his remembrance of Hilst on Thursday, ended it by saying:
“Thank God Rusty Hilst chose to live, work, and play here in Hutchinson, KS, USA.”
Hilst would always end his broadcasts by saying: “Goodnight everybody.”
Here are some of the accolades Hilst has received:
1978 — Became HHS math department chair.
2002 — Named to the Kansas Golf Hall of Fame.
2004 — Kansas Sportscaster of the Year.
2005 — Hod Humiston Award from the Kansas Association of Broadcasters. The award has been won by former Kansas City Royals announcer Fred White and the current voice of the Kansas City Chiefs, Mitch Holthus.
2014 — Became the first non-player, coach or administrator to be inducted into the HCC Quarterback Club Hall of Fame “in recognition of his unmatched service to Blue Dragon athletics through broadcasting and advocacy,” his obituary says.
2023 — Entered into the Kansas Teachers’ Hall of Fame
2024 — The name of a player of the year award was changed to the Rusty Hilst Central Links Golf Boy’s Junior Player of the Year. The honor goes to the best player at the end of each competition season.
He also won seven city golf tournaments.