Missed, but not forgotten
They say some people are larger than life, and "Huz" Jensen was certainly one that fit the term.
His funeral on Monday overflowed from St. Matthew's, into standing room only in the basement to watch the service on a TV screen. It was a fitting tribute of respect for a man who has meant so much to Flathead High School, and this community.
He was an all-around athlete himself, played for and loved the Grizzlies, and then spent 38 years teaching school and coaching between Kalispell and Butte. The friends he made and the kids he affected are way too numerous to mention, but a lot of the people who attended the funeral were former athletes of his from football, track, or wrestling, and former colleagues of his from teaching and coaching.
I'm not used to clapping during and following a eulogy, but the two that were delivered by his longtime friend and associate, Bill Epperly, and one of his sons-in-law, Dick Dramstead, caused a spontaneous outburst that I have rarely witnessed.
The picture they painted was of a man that had limitless energy to give to family, friends, the athletes and students that he worked with, and also the troubled kids that he helped through the Juvenile Work Program.
He appeared to have a filter built into his character that made every human being come up on his screen in exactly the same way, so no one was treated differently than anyone else. To some of those kids in trouble, it was likely his treatment that helped them turn their lives in a positive direction.
They also told stories about the man who loved to tell stories, no matter how corny they might be, and told them over and over again. You could never tell for sure if the people he was speaking about actually existed or if they were made up, and family and friends both have been shocked to find out in recent years that some were indeed living, breathing people.
His mind was like a computer storage device, logging away every face, name, and often even height and weight for some future date. Coach Dan Hodge met him when he was a sophomore at Butte High, and Jensen knew Dan before Dan knew him because Dan was competition for "his boys."
Jensen never met anyone he couldn't talk to and if you didn't know him, you couldn't spend more than a few minutes in the same room without him striking up a conversation, and becoming his friend. His dedication to teaching was legendary. Mark Dennehy told me that the day Jensen retired, after 38 years of teaching, he was still at school at 4:30 in the afternoon helping one of "his kids" pass a test.
His retirement was as active as his work life, with days filled with hiking, fishing, and camping. He also had a weekly coffee club with former coaches and teachers like Epperly, Chuck Gologoski, Larry Kaber, Neil Hart, Jeff Hughes, Loy Robinson and Jack Bradford among others.
I saw Jensen at a high school game after his health had started failing him, but he looked quite dashing with the patch over one eye, and had the same boundless energy as always. If you can measure a man by the number of friends he can count when he's gone, or by the amount of people he has positively influenced, then "Huz" was a man in full. He will be missed but not forgotten.
Alice Ritzman is a pro golfer from Kalispell and head coach of the Flathead High School golf program. She can be reached by email at ritzman@dailyinterlake.com