This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list. Classification: Death Message Board URL: http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec/msg/rw/zk.2ADI/2153.1 Message Board Post: Kruse remembered as coach, teacher, friend ©Daily Nonpareil BRIEN T. BOYCE, Staff Writer 03/09/2006 In 49 years of marriage, Sandra Kruse said life with her husband Bud never lacked in excitement. "In all that time, there was never a dull moment," Sandra said. A longtime educator in Council Bluffs, Warren B. "Bud" Kruse, 71, died March 7 at Jennie Edmundson Hospital. Though born in Sioux City on May 29, 1934, Bud spent most of his life in Council Bluffs. He graduated from Thomas Jefferson High School in 1952. He later attended Dana College in Blair, Neb., and the University of Iowa for Deaf Education. Bud's passion for his students spread beyond the school boundaries, Sandra said. "He touched so many students' lives, and the lives of their families as well," she said. Bud began his teaching career in the Shelby-Tennant (now A-H-S-T) School District, then taught in the Hamburg Schools. He started teaching in the Council Bluffs School District in 1958. While in Council Bluffs, Bud taught at Longfellow and the former Eastside High School, and later when it became Abraham Lincoln High School, for 11 years. During his time at Abraham Lincoln, he also served as football coach, and had his best year in 1966 with the team going 6-3, Sandra said. Bud left the Council Bluffs School District in 1969. From there, he went to work at the Iowa School for the Deaf, where he would spend the next 20 years working with people like Dan Gradoville, who was the school's athletic director at the time. "Bud was an excellent coach, teacher, mentor and friend. He always had the interest and well-being of the students first. The kids were his priority and his focus," Gradoville said. During that time, Gradoville called it "an honor and a pleasure" to work with Bud, and learned much about coaching from him. "He was unique. I was fortunate to have the opportunity to learn a lot about coaching from him. He was a tribute to the profession." Bud's love of coaching football with deaf students paid off. Sandra said he was named National Association of the Deaf's Coach of the Year in 1988 for eight-man football. "There is no doubt in my mind that there are a lot of former students in this world (who are) better off because they had the opportunity to have Bud for a coach," Gradoville said. Bud was also inducted into the Council Bluffs Relays Hall of Fame in 2003. The best part of Sandra's life with Bud came after she retired and he retired from ISD in 1989. From that point on, their relationship went to another level. "We started traveling, gardening, and spending more time together," she said, "and I thought, 'why, we became better friends too.'" Bud is also survived by a daughter, two sons and 11 grandchildren.