Bigfork schools lose close friend

By LAURA BEHENNA

Bigfork Eagle

Bigfork Public Schools lost a dear friend Feb. 3. Mark Matthew “Butch” Bruss, 61, the schools’ custodian since 2004, apparently died at home in his sleep, Bigfork Middle School principal Wayne Loeffler said.

A somber atmosphere pervaded the school halls last week as students remembered the kind man who called the girls “princess” and handed out Snickers candy bars to students who honored his request to keep their classroom floor clean.

“He used to tease me a lot,” Kara Palmer, 13, said. “It was really fun. He’d catch me and say, ‘Don’t run in the hall.’”

Butch would hide kids’ shoes under the bleachers at student dances and let them find the shoes themselves, Andrea Perez, 12, said. Once he gave her the wrong directions to a classroom and hid when she came back so that she couldn’t scold him, she said.

Emma Schuldheisz, 13, remembered when Butch pulled her out of the way of an oncoming car when she was in elementary school.

“He saved my life,” she said. “If it wasn’t for Butch I don’t think I’d be here right now.”

“He was honest and responsible,” Schuldheisz continued. “He was a very quiet man, but he loved chatting. He loved all the students and the teachers. Education was really important to Butch. He wanted all of us to go to college.”

“He just kept me company,” 13-year-old Anthony Baker said. “I talked to him every day in the hallways. When I first came here he told me where to go to play basketball. He was just a good man.”

Schuldheisz said she and her friends Angel and Megan “were like his granddaughters. To hear of his passing is like part of our hearts chipping off.”

“He was a go-getter,” principal Loeffler said of the custodian he hired in August 2004. “I never saw him idle. He was always on the move.”

Although Butch’s workday began at 2 p.m., he almost always arrived early, Loeffler said, because he enjoyed being with the students. “Just the couple of hours he was here [when] the kids were around — it was amazing. The small things he did for the kids, they really noticed and appreciated.”

When he was hired, Butch asked Loeffler if he could give candy to the kids as an incentive to keep their classrooms clean because it made his job easier. Thus began the Snickers bar tradition almost all the students mention when they talk about Butch.

At least four walls have become “In loving memory of Butch” bulletin boards where students posted notes and artwork in honor of their friend. On one of these displays, every note to Butch had a mini-Snickers bar taped to it.

“Butch was more than a janitor to us, he was a friend,” Maddie L. wrote. “The most remarkable time was when we all pitched in money for an AppleBee’s gift certificate, and when we gave it to him his smile spread from ear to ear!”

“Butch, you were a great man with a kind-hearted personality,” Jacob S. wrote. “Everyone loves you and will miss you. That’s the greatest achievement of all and is much better than being rich or having any material thing in the entire world.”

Students, staff and administrators gathered Friday morning, Feb. 9, in the middle school gym to pay tribute to Butch.

Although Butch had no family in the area, “I truly believe his family was here at school,” Loeffler told the assembled students.

“He was a friend, a role model, someone we could trust,” high school student Mallery Knoll said.

The schools will plant a birch tree on the grounds in Butch’s honor this April. Donations toward buying “a really nice tree” are being accepted at the elementary school office, Loeffler said. The date of the planting ceremony will be announced when it has been scheduled.

As the assembly concluded and the students filed out of the gym, each one took a Snickers bar from a large bowl.

This one’s for you, Butch.