Klassen remembered for elevating music program

Longtime Whitefish High School band director John Klassen will be remembered for his sense of humor as much as his role in lifting the music department to award-winning status.

Klassen died Aug. 3 in Whitefish at age 71. He is survived by his wife, Susan Klassen, and his two daughters, Amy Winslow and Lisa White.

For two decades beginning in 1986, Klassen taught band at both the high school and middle school.

Former students and fellow teachers remember Klassen’s no-nonsense approach in the classroom and his unforgettable way of making people laugh — even if they didn’t always get the joke.

“It was a unique sense of humor,” said Kelly West Haverlandt, a student under Klassen in the late 1980s and early 90s, then later a teaching colleague. “He was very funny, but it was a dry sense of humor that not everyone got at first glance. He enjoyed making us laugh.”

Originally from Minnesota, Klassen earned a performing arts degree and later an education degree from Moorhead University. He played with the Army Field Band in Washington, D.C. for three years. His specialty was trumpet, which he first picked up in fifth grade, but could play nearly any instrument. Klassen taught in eastern Montana and Minnesota before arriving in Whitefish.

Whitefish’s music department thrived under Klassen, with the band winning numerous awards including first place at Seattle’s Heritage Festival.

“He built the program to be one of the best in the state,” Haverlandt said. “Not a lot of bands our size did so well.”

“He gave us an understanding of the value of learning an instrument and being a part of a band.”

Another of Klassen’s students, Jerry Gray, agreed, noting Klassen’s patience with students.

“It amazed me what he did with students, like myself, who really were not all that talented,” Gray said. “But when we’d go to district or state, we were very good. It was because of his patience. He never accepted mediocrity. We kept going until we were at a high level.”

Whitefish orchestra teacher Jenanne Solberg says she was drawn to teach at Whitefish in the early 2000s in part because of the school’s reputation for music.

“I was teaching at Billings Central and I was well aware of the quality of the program at Whitefish,” Solberg said

She said Klassen became a mentor for her and assisted in starting the school’s first orchestra program.

“He went alongside me and was supportive and encouraged it,” Solberg said.

Solberg describes Klassen’s teaching style as direct and demanding.

“He expected the best,” she said. “He had the ultimate respect for the students who had respect for him.”

Klassen said of himself in a 1998 Pilot interview, “I’m probably on the stricter side, as opposed to warm and fuzzy.”

Solberg recalls one incident at the Seattle Heritage Festival where students were loading onto the bus after an exceptional first-place performance, hoping to hear gushing praise from their teacher.

“They wanted him to be effusive,” she said. “But he looked at them with a wry smile and just said ‘You done good.’”

To this day, Solberg has hundreds of cartoon clippings on her office walls that Klassen gave her over the years. He’d cut them out of “The New Yorker” magazine or the newspaper and slip them under her door.

“They were snarky cartoons that he knew I’d find funny,” she said.

After retiring in 2006, Klassen turned to his passion of woodworking, crafting artisan wood canoes, paddles and furniture at his ranch off Farm-to-Market Road.

“I enjoy building things, whether it’s something from wood or a band program,” he told the Pilot in a 2006 interview. “I think they’re both similar in some respect.”

Gray and Klassen became close friends over the years, staying in touch when Gray moved to Great Falls. The two would often visit on Gray’s trips back to Whitefish.

“He was always such a role model to me,” Gray said. “I’d call him if I was working on a carpentry project and he’d tell me over the phone what to do.”

“He was an excellent carpenter and woodworker — he was excellent at everything he touched.”

“He’ll be missed for years to come.”

Services for Klassen are pending. Johnson-Gloschat Funeral Home is caring for the Klassen family. Visit www.jgfuneralhome.com to leave condolences for the family.