He was ‘the guy you wanted.’ Students, colleagues of Olathe principal feel deep loss

John Ernst was the kind of guy who’d have your back, whether you were a teacher, a friend or one of the hundreds of students at Rolling Ridge Elementary School. The Olathe school principal died June 13 of neuroendocrine cancer at age 44.

“He was probably the most supportive principal that I had or worked under. If you needed someone to go to bat for you, he was definitely the guy you wanted,” said Brent Bechard, who taught physical education at Rolling Ridge for several years while Ernst served as principal.

Bechard appreciated the way Ernst could read a situation and adjust his approach accordingly.

“However you needed him to support you, he was there and able to play that role. He could adapt to all sorts of different of teacher styles,” said Bechard, who is now athletic director at Mill Valley High School.

“Somebody who needs the principal to be really hands-on, he could have been that person, but if there’s veteran teacher who’s been doing it for 30 years and he or she’s got it down, John could realize that and knew that he didn’t need to step in as much. He wasn’t just a ‘this is my style, and you adapt to me’ (person). He adapted to all the teachers.”

It was obvious to everyone how much he cared about those around him.

“During the winter every year, you could see him always outside at the end of the school day, scraping windows of every teacher and every staff member or lifting their windshield wipers up so they didn’t get frozen to their windshield, even when he was going through all of his treatments for cancer,” said Kendra Mitts, a parent who has had several children at Rolling Ridge.

Mitts appreciated Ernst’s hands-on approach to being a principal during his nine years at Rolling Ridge.

“A lot of principals just stay in their office. They don’t interact with the kids unless they’re in trouble, but he always made a big deal out of going to their classrooms and interacting with them,” Mitts said.

His fellow principals recognized Ernst’s talent, with the Kansas chapter of the National Association of Elementary School Principals naming him as the state’s entry for the National Distinguished Principal of the Year in 2016.

A native of Iowa, Ernst worked in education in several places in the metro, including Olathe and Fort Leavenworth, and earned a Ph.D. from Baker University.

“He knew when to take off the principal hat and be almost a father figure to everyone,” Bechard said. “At a Title I school, those kids don’t always need to have an authority figure that shows their authority. Sometimes they need a little love and a hug and somebody they could trust, and that was John.”

He remembered a particular time when he saw Ernst in action, helping a student.

“I’ll never forget that student was in crisis in a room, and I walked into the room, and there’s John down on the floor, sitting next to that student, eye-level, just having a conversation with him. He wasn’t afraid to roll around on the floor and get on their level to let them know he was there to help them,” Bechard said.

“That took that kid out of crisis real quickly, because he wasn’t standing over, giving orders making that kid feel threatened. He made himself vulnerable so that that kid knew he didn’t need to feel threatened.”

Bechard, who considers Ernst to be one of his best friends, has more personal happy memories of Ernst. When Ernst came to Rolling Ridge, he recruited a kindergarten teacher, Beth Fanning, from his school in Fort Leavenworth to come along with him.

With some encouragement from Ernst and his wife, Heidi, Bechard and Fanning began dating, and now they’re married with a son.

“They would talk about it all the time and joke, ‘You guys are going to get married.’ We blew it off at the beginning, but it was almost like they knew,” Bechard said.

Before getting sick in 2019, Ernst was a very active person, participating in snow and water skiing.

“He was the kind of guy that never just sat around, that’s for sure. He was always wanting to do something,” Bechard said.

That spirit came out in his #ErnstStrong hashtag that became a theme at the school, as he encourage students to “never say quit”.

Ernst is survived by Heidi and two children, Joe and Carlie.

A GoFundMe Page in his name is still active, at https://www.gofundme.com/f/unx89k-ernst-strong-neuroendocrine-cancer?fs=e&s=cl