Melvin Pontious

1931 - 2025

Melvin Pontious
Born: July 11, 1931
Died: November 2, 2025
Mel Pontious, 94, of North Platte, Nebraska, passed away peacefully on 11/2 at home, in the company of his 2 daughters, Linda Lewis and Karen Mueller.
Melvin was born in on 7/11/31 to Vere and Fern Pontious, on a farm where they raised 4 sons. He served a 3-year stint in the military, where he played trombone in the highly regarded Army Field Band and was discharged as a sergeant. He then culminated his education with a doctorate in music education from the University of Illinois, after earning his BA at Wichita State University and his Masters at the Oberlin Conservatory in Ohio.
Mel was the head band director at LaSalle-Peru Township High School in Illinois for 18 years, highlighted by an invitation to the Vienna Music Festival where the band took high honors and received many accolades, performing in several countries during a 3-week tour. After a 5-year professorship at Bradley University in Peoria, he served as the Fine Arts Curriculum Consultant for the state of Wisconsin for 25 years. In that role, in addition to facilitating effective arts curriculums in K-12 as well as at the university level, he developed a teaching approach that resulted in an action research group of teachers in the arts, developing techniques that were presented at various conferences all over the country, and ultimately resulted in a book.
Mel met Dorothy Beach at Wichita State University where they were both instrumental music majors, and they married in 1955, having two children, Linda and Karen. They enjoyed time with their two grandchildren, Alyssa and Ashlyn Lewis, and their son-in-law, King Mueller.
Mel was an avid outdoorsman; his passion for fly fishing was supplemented by fly tying, recurve bowhunting, backpacking, morel mushroom hunting, and running. He imparted his interest in fitness and the outdoors to his daughters. He ran with and coached his daughters, entering races together, and running with them at any opportunity from their adolescence and throughout adulthood, well into his 80s. His love of the outdoors resulted in teaching his daughters to tie flies at a very early age and going on many fly fishing adventures. He was still backpacking with his daughters in the Rockies every year until his late 80's. His love of fitness and his ability to apply focus and discipline to anything of interest resulted in an impressive level of accomplishments in various areas. Mel passed his love of learning onto his daughters and granddaughters, continuing to do the NYT crossword in ink up till the last few days of his life and impressing us all with his breadth of knowledge and his endless memory. He was a lifelong learner and passed his love of learning onto his daughters and granddaughters. He will be greatly missed by the myriad of people, students, and teachers that he touched.
He is survived by his two daughters, Linda (fiancé Chris Helmuth), and Karen (husband King Mueller); his grandchildren, Alyssa and Ashlyn Lewis; his youngest brother, Gary Pontious (Ellie); nieces, Alice Pilram (Atta), and Annie Kharoufeh (Jamal); nephews, Mark Pontious, John Pontious (Julie), John Beach (Joy), Tim Beach (Ana), and Bruce Baumruk (Sue); and multiple grandnieces and grandnephews.
His memorial service will be at the Starved Rock Lodge at Starved Rock State Park in Utica, Illinois on January 11th from 2 to 5pm. Appetizers and drinks will be served, and lodging is available on site. Please call 815-667-4211 for lodging information.