By Bruce Sayler
After a football career of throwing opposing running backs to the ground, Butte native Joe Kilminster began a star resume working on the Boeing 707 Intercontinental airplane at the company Seattle plant in the early 1950s.
With both feet set firmly on the ground, Kilminster’s spanning mind traveled the air through a work career of more than 30 years. After two years at the Seattle position, Kilminster, a mathematics degree from Montana State College in hand then pursued a master’s in mechanical engineering at the University of Utah. A 33-year career near Brigham City, Utah, working on propellants for rocket boosters with a hand in developing the NASA space shuttle followed.
He held executive status.
Friday night, though, is when Kilminster figures he will soar to Cloud 9. That is when the 1952 Butte High graduate will join the Diamond B status of the Butte High Silver B men’s football auxiliary. The 86th Annual Meeting Silver B Meeting will be held Friday at Butte High School. The group recognizes Bulldog football lettermen from 25 years ago as Silver B’s, 50 years ago as Golden B’s and 75 years ago as Diamond B’s.
Kilminster first lettered in Butte High football as a junior, the fall of 1950.
He has attended the “last four or five” annual functions as a member and said he has every intention of being on the field Friday night for his recognition as a Diamond B. He and Dan Larsen are the only two Diamond B’s this year, said club historian Scott Paffhausen.
“That’s my plan,” Kilminster said last Thursday in a phone interview from Frenchtown, where he and his late wife, the former Shirley Brown of Butte, retired after his aeronautics career. “I have been blessed and fortunate my whole life. It is important that people understand that I’m one of the most fortunate people you’ll ever run across.”
He said the good fortune began in Butte when he was a child living near the Orphan Girl Mine at a Montana Power natural gas plant complex of West Butte, the current vicinity of the Montana Tech campus western reaches.
“Somehow, I was always in the right place at the right time,” the 91-year-old honoree said. “I had a father I really looked up as he and my mom were wonderful peoples. The best thing I ever accomplished is to be the father of three wonderful daughters.”
He said he has hopes the three daughters – Rina in Bozeman, Vickie in Missoula and Kathy in Boise – will be able to escort him across the Naranche Stadium turf Friday night when he is introduced prior to the Bulldogs’ 7:30 game against Helena High.
Kilminster’s wife, Shirley, passed in 2008.
Kilminster played guard on offense and linebacker on defense for the 1950 and 1951 Butte High teams that played twice for the state Class AA championship. He played well enough to be voted to All-State second team twice, to the Big 6 All-Conference team, to be selected for the 1952 East-West Shrine Game to earn a spot as a freshman on the Montana Tech (then the Montana School of Mines) the fall of ’52.
He also lettered in track in high school, spinning the discus.
“I played on the B Squad (at Butte High) and then lettered my junior and senior years,” Kilminster said, “for Swede Dahlberg and Bill Hawke.”
He added his subvarsity (B Squad) coach was Sammy Leiper.
“My junior year, we won the Big 6 championship and played Kalispell for the state championship in Butte,” he remembered. “They beat us.
“The next year, they won the Big 6 championship and we played them (for the state title) up there. We tied 7-7 and it was, no question, the best football game I ever played in in my life. I have a lot of fond memories of the ‘band of brothers’ on that team. Swede and Bill are legends.”
It was an opinion echoed by Larsen, who said he will not be able to attend his Diamond B ceremonies for health reasons.
Kilminster said playing for coaching greats like Dahlberg and Hawke, and having fundamentals introduced the younger players by Leiper, counted among the blessings, the examples of good fortune he experienced over his lifetime. He added that after playing a year for the Orediggers, helping on the Ed Simonich staff that rocketed the School of Mines team to success is also on the good-luck list.
“ ‘Big Ed’ Simonich came after I had played,” Kilminster said. “But, when I did some graduate work there, I receive the opportunity to help him coach the team.”
Another Butte legend in coaching, “Mr. Baseball” Bill Cullen was Kilminster’s grade-school baseball coach at McKinley School, he said.
Kilminster credited his education at Butte High and the college he attended – Montana Tech, Montana, Montana State and Utah – for helping him on to his successful professional life. Again, he mentioned he was “blessed” and “very fortunate” for the education.
Kilminster enjoyed his line of work so much, he became a pilot, too.
“Flying had always been on my to-do list,” he said. “I wound up being a pilot and spent several hours with the Civil Air Patrol searching for lost people. I enjoyed the many hours I had with a number of folks in the Civil Air Patrol while we were practicing (flying) in the mountains and rugged terrains.”
He said he never desired to try out a helicopter, but was a fan of the fixed-wing aircraft.
He knew members of the Naranche family of Butte, but not Eso, the man for whom the Butte High stadium is named and who was killed in World War II. However, Kilminster said he worked a summer job in road construction for Spike Naranche. He was unsure of the relationship between the two men. Spike Naranche, Kilminster added sadly, died along with his son, Dan Naranche, in airplane crash several years ago.
The man’s success might have had to do with good coaches and teachers, but there was a determination evident, too. Kilminster revealed that when his family lived at the natural gas complex, soldiers fenced it off at the start of World War II and so he had to open and close gates, then hike up to the railroad tracks to use as a route to the McKinley for his early schooling.
There was hard work, determination and maybe some fortunate happenstance. Kilminster likes to credit others for his good life, but it seems he had much to do with it himself.
Friday night will mark another accomplishment when he crosses Naranche Stadium as a Diamond B.
