Bruce Benda, 70, of Libby
Many of his students’ favorite teacher, Russell Bruce Benda, Jr., died at St. John’s Lutheran Hospital in Libby on Oct. 3, 2013, after a short, courageous battle with cancer.
Bruce was born in Tacoma, Wash., to Russell and Isobel Benda on July 6, 1943. He attended schools in Washington and Idaho, graduating from the University of Idaho.
He taught in the Libby School system for 37 years in the science curriculum as well as in courses he designed. He loved teaching and learning.
His students and fellow teachers were very important to him. Bruce sold or checked activity tickets at every school athletic event for years, remembering families, names of students, coaches and bus drivers locally, as well as from towns all around.
Having worked in the woods with his dad from the age of nine, Bruce also worked in the woods during summers and weekends for at least 35 years as a sawyer, thinner and wood gatherer.
An avid hunter and reloader, he loved to hunt with his sons, and with his friend, Larry Tosh, to fish with his good friend Larry Hilderman and others, and go grouse hunting with Tanner.
He loved gardening, cooking, canning and helping anyone he could, either by himself or with his sons, or others he recruited.
He was a voracious reader who retained what he read and discussed many subjects with a wide circle of friends. He had a ready laugh and a wild sense of humor.
He was a member of the Christ Lutheran Church who practiced what he believed by quietly helping so many people in the community with whatever needed to be done without expecting payment, by visiting people who didn’t get out and by helping to deliver “medicine bags.”
Bruce married Donna Koeppen in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, on June 25, 1966. They raised three children.
He was preceded in death by his parents and sister Linda Litchfield.
Survivors include his wife of 47 years, Donna; son, Michael and fiancé, Ellen Weiser; daughter, Suzanne (Dennis) Huberty of Seattle, Wash.; son, Robert of Libby; sisters, Patricia (Arlo) Clayborn, Norma Benda, Janice (Doug) Mueller; and brother–in-law, Jack Litchfield, all of Idaho.
Services will be held at 11:40 a.m. Thursday, Oct. 10, 2013, at Libby High School’s Ralph Tate Gymnasium. A reception in his honor will follow at Christ Lutheran Church.
He will be missed and remembered always by everyone who knew him. Although Bruce was too much of a person to be captured in mere words, the following paraphrase of Ralph Waldo Emerson’s statement does describe him; “To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and the affectation of children; to leave the world a better place; to know even one life has breathed easier because (he has) lived — this is to have succeeded.”