Charles B. Nesbit

Charles B. Nesbit, 95, passed away peacefully on Monday, Dec. 5, 2022. He was born in Poplar on Feb. 10, 1927. (Charles wrote most of his own obituary. “I wrote it at the same time I wrote my wife Betty’s,” he told a close friend, “because a part of me died back then.”)

Raised on a farm in the Mineral Bench community 30 miles north of Poplar, he went a mile and a half across two wheat fields to grade school. When he graduated from eighth grade, he moved to Poplar to go to high school, living with his sister, Nellie, her husband and their two small children. In high school, he participated in almost every extracurricular activity offered — football, track, band, cheer squad — and graduated as valedictorian of his class. After high school, he enrolled in the Army Specialized Training Reserve Program as a way to attend college and went first to the University of Idaho and then, after recommendation for further schooling, to the University of West Virginia.

Discharged from the Army in 1946, he enrolled at the University of Montana, where he got his BA in English and, then for a year, taught, as a graduate assistant, freshman composition to other GIs, all of whom were older than he. In January 1951, he moved to Billings to teach English and moved quickly from freshmen to sophomores to juniors to seniors, and ended up teaching Honors English 12, the love of his professional life.

Along the way, he earned his MA from Eastern (now MSUB), married Betty Thompson (1957) and worked with her to lead the Billings West High Majorettes to state and national recognition. Betty was the Mother Superior; he was the choreographer. During the summer, he taught the girls to twirl. Later, with the help of student leaders, he made up their routines. Standing ovations and people waiting to congratulate the Jettes when they returned from national competition were highlights of that career.

For many years, Charles “Charlie” was also chairperson for the State Course of Study in English. During those years that Senior High participated in the National Council of Teachers of English competition, he saw his students, year after year, win NCTE writing awards.

Preceding him in death were his wife, Betty; his parents, Ralph and Marie Nesbit; his sisters, Nellie Baker (Manny), Mabel Jensen (Norman); and four brothers, Russell (Bud), John (Doreen), Ralph Jr. “Stub” (Grace) and Tommy. Left to mourn are six All-American nieces and nephews: Dr. James Baker (Karen), Bill Jensen (Mary), Mary Lynne Granbois, Larry Nesbit (Berva Dawn), Jim Nesbit (Mary), Dave Nesbit (Nancy); and a host of special friends and very loyal former colleagues at both Senior and West.

Mr. Nesbit, as many continued to call him, always said he wanted to “do good … for somebody or something” and, self-deprecating as he tended to be, he probably did not realize how many lives (students, majorettes) he touched for both present and future good. He loved teaching, especially all the poetry he could squeeze into the curriculum (Emily Dickinson was a favorite), but literature and composition, important as they were, were always second to what he considered the most important requirement of his profession: making students feel good about themselves. When he retired from the classroom in 1999, though he and Betty continued to sponsor the West High Majorettes, his superintendent, Roger Eble, sent him a letter than began “Charlie, what does one say?” and ended “You represent the best of American teachers.”

At the last class reunion he attended, his students were still reciting Chaucer (in Middle English) and Shakespeare and Frost and Dickinson, but they remembered even better his Christmas story, the one that took three days to tell. The story about how his four brothers, with money they had earned raising wheat right after the war, pooled their resources first to send him to college and then to buy him his first car, a little white Chevy with white sidewall tires. “I loved that story. I dearly, deeply loved it,” said one of his alums. “How uniquely human he was!” At that same reunion, one student brought a book he had just written, another sent a short story and many, after first kidding about all the essays they had to write while they were in his classes, agreed that their writing had certainly been easier, and better, since.

His legacy will be positive, personal and lasting. Its uniqueness honored for years to come by an enduring combination of deep respect and genuine affection (most would call it love) … because you did “do good,” Mr. Nesbit, and those of us now left behind — former students, former majorettes, friends, parents, neighbors — hope that before you died, you somehow came to know that.

We grieve, certainly, but we also stand to applaud, still very much in awe, as you go home now to Betty.

Cremation has taken place. A celebration of Charlie’s life will be held in the spring at Michelotti-Sawyers Mortuary, 1001 Alderson Ave.

Memorials may be made to the Charles and Betty Nesbit Scholarship Fund administered by the Education Foundation for Billings Public Schools, 415 N. 30th St., Billings, MT 59101.

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