By BRENT MAYCOCK
KSHSAA Covered
Craig Manteuffel had every intention of his retirement as an assistant executive director at the Kansas State High School Activities Association to be the outro of a career dedicated to music.
Instead, the beat goes on. Manteuffel will indeed retire from his KSHSAA position on Sept. 30. But instead of fading off into a full-blown retirement, he’s somewhat hitting the repeat on the tune that’s carried throughout his professional career.“I’m kind of coming full circle,” said Manteuffel, who has accepted the Executive Director position for the Kansas Music Educators Association, taking over the position on July 1. “I’ve been involved with KMEA really since middle school. Now I’m back to where I started.”The journey from an All-State tuba player as a sophomore at Hays High School to now being the Executive Director of the same organization that honored him has not only come full circle, but taken Manteuffel on a path that had some perhaps surprise bridges along the way.
His love for music began at an early age, sparked by his grandfather, Walter Manteuffel, who Craig said “would sing all the time.”
“I don’t know how many tunes he knew, but he would just sing. And I would sing with him.”The fire was stoked when Manteuffel participated in a musical theater college production of Camelot at Fort Hays State as a fourth-grader and began to burn brightly when he took up playing the tuba and other low brass instruments in fifth grade.
Music became more than just a passion, but a career goal when he was chosen to the All-State band his sophomore year.“It’s the best of the best playing in a band with a guest clinician, someone very respected in the U.S. and abroad,” he said. “It was an amazing experience to sit in that band, hear those sounds – just the entire All-State experience. I went right back to my counselor and said I want to be a band director and what do I need to do to pursue that.”Manteuffel set on his musical education path at Fort Hays State, earning his undergraduate degree in Instrumental/Vocal Music Education and then a Master of Liberal Studies/Fine Arts with an emphasis in Instrumental Conducting. Upon graduation he took a teaching position at Otis-Bison where he taught instrumental music for grades 5 through 12 and choir at the high school level, in addition to serving as an assistant football coach at the middle school level.
After a 10-year stint at Otis-Bison, Manteuffel returned to his alma mater, where he was the director of bands at Hays from 1996 to 2015 while also teaching music at the middle school.
At both stops, he found immense pleasure and satisfaction in working with students taking up an instrument for the first time.“I wanted to be with the beginners because that’s where it all starts,” he said. “If they don’t get started right, they’ll quit. Best thing you can do is get them a good instrument. Then they’re set up for success right off the bat. And then you can teach them from there.“It’s kind of unique, especially on the band side of things because you start them in fifth grade and then you have them, at least in my situations, until they graduate. You get to see them progress and it’s very rewarding to do that because you are so involved in their lives throughout their journey.”As his teaching career progressed at Hays, Manteuffel never envisioned a deviation from that melodious journey. In fact, he and his wife, Paula, bought their retirement home in Hays.
“I was going to retire from Hays High teaching and do some other things,” he said. “Really had no other ambitions and there wasn’t a job that was going to pull us away from Hays.”
A phone call from his former boss at Otis-Bison, Mark Goodheart, changed that.
In 2015, Reggie Romine retired his assistant executive director position at KSHSAA and Goodheart felt Manteuffel was the perfect replacement. Having served as president of the KMEA from 2009-15, Manteuffel had worked closely with Romine for several years.
Respecting Goodheart’s opinion as well as that of KMEA Executive Director John Taylor – who told him, ‘You absolutely have to do it’ – Manteuffel consulted with Paula and joined the KSHSAA in 2015.
While the KSHSAA position covered all aspects of musical competition – band, choir, orchestra and piano – it also entailed activities of which Manteuffel was far less familiar with. He also became the primary administrator for speech and drama, debate and spirit activities.“There were some big challenges there,” Manteuffel said. “I had a little bit of speech and a lot of theater background, but I had no debate background whatsoever. And I had worked with dance coaches and cheer coaches pretty much every year of my 29-year career. Being the band director, you work with them on getting music, but I had no idea of the rules cheer and dance coaches have to learn to be safe and have their kids safe.
“But at KSHSAA one thing is, everybody helps each other. You have advisory committees that help and I had great advisory committees to work with. They helped out tremendously. I had really good partners and a lot of support in those situations. I don’t think anybody could do this job without having extensive backgrounds in all three activities unless you have a lot of support and I did. I had a great time with spirit folks and debate and speech coaches and both taught me a lot in my nine years. I’m very appreciative to those committees It’s a lot of learning, but it’s good learning. It’s all for kids and what we strive for is to give them events they can flourish in. It’s all worth it.”
During his tenure, in fact, KSHSAA – with the help of Varsity Spirit – developed GameDay Spirit Showcase, a state championship event for both cheer and dance teams across the state. The state competitions were a combined championship from 2017-19 before awarding championships in both cheer and dance beginning in 2020.“When I first came to the Association, (then-Executive Director) Gary Musselman was in contact with UIL (Texas’ Activities Association) and they were talking about starting a GameDay event in Texas,” Manteuffel said. “We started communicating with Texas and talked through things and the more we talked and worked through it we thought it would be perfect for Kansas because KSHSAA had never had a spirit championship of any kind.“I’m really proud of the growth that’s made. There are so many people behind the scenes that you don’t think about. Varsity Spirit, there’s no way I would have been able to run that even without them. They know the right adjudicators to judge those, they have people that do this all across the United States and of course Stormont (Vail Events Center) has been really good for this event. It’s probably one of the best events sites for this particular event in the U.S. and Varsity Spirit tells us that every year.Manteuffel’s tenure with KSHSAA also saw the implementation of a first-of-its-kid annual Performing Arts School of Excellence Award, given to a school in Kansas that excels in its fine arts.“It was a fun process for me,” he said. “I think in a school community, athletics play a big part, but I also think the fine arts play a huge part as well at every school. If you can be successful in all programs, it’s amazing. Some schools are very good at music, some are good at debate and speech. But not very often do they put it all together and they just thrive in every activity on the fine arts side of things. We modeled it from the NFHS when they started the award.
“We bring in committees from music, theater and debate and speech and to get all those associations in the same room had really never happened. To hear the dialogue they have throughout the process of choosing the winner is a neat process and I hope it continues forever.”
His impact has not gone unnoticed by those he worked closely with. He was honored on Thursday at a retirement ceremony at KSHSAA, joined not only by his family and fellow KSHSAA colleagues past and present, but also Taylor, Goodheart and other influecnes throughout his career.
“As a teacher, coach, director, and administrator, Mr. Manteuffel has demonstrated steady, thoughtful, and engaged leadership for the member schools we serve,” KSHSAA Executive Director Bill Faflick said. “His desire to inspire students through connections to learning and growth opportunities helped prepare countless students to be successful in life and will resonate across our great state and beyond for years to come.”
Manteuffel's position at KSHSAA has been filled by Megan Hagaman.
Arguably the biggest challenge of Manteuffel’s career was navigating the performing arts through COVID. While the pandemic had an effect on all athletics and activities sponsored by the KSHSAA – canceling the end of the 2020 basketball season as well as the entire spring sports season that year – it really had a major impact on the performing arts, which largely are conducted in large groups and inside where serious restrictions were in place for more than a year.
The pandemic caused significant attrition in those activities, but Manteuffel and the KSHSAA staff were able to generate alternative means of still conducting competitions, including virtual performances. Manteuffel said numbers in those activities are now close to returning to pre-COVID levels and calls surviving that stretch one of his most significant accomplishments of his tenure.“COVID was horrible, but it was horrible for everybody – not just KSHSAA employees, but schools, teachers, administrators – it was everybody in education” he said. “If you want an accomplishment I feel most proud of, it was making it through COVID and being able to still perform. That was a big deal. Music and performing arts got a pretty bad rap right off the bat with COVID. But we made it through and kids were performing in the fall of 2020. “We learned how to navigate it and were able to make it through and here we are today.”And here we are with Manteuffel’s career coming full circle.
When Taylor announced his intentions to retire after a 22-year career as Executive Director of KMEA, Manteuffel joined the committee in charge of trying to find his replacement. He just never imagined that that person would be someone on the committee, namely him.
“Anybody that had been president of KMEA were in hopes that John would stay forever,” Manteuffel said. “He’d been there 22 years and you just always in the back of your mind was thinking, ‘Who the heck is going to take over for somebody that’s been there that long?’ He’s the only one who knows what he’s done.”
As the committee was preparing for interviews, then-KMEA president Jamie Minneman approached Manteuffel with a different option.
“She said, ‘We’d really like for you to apply for the job,’” Manteuffel said. “I said, ‘No, I cant do that.’ But the more I thought about it and talked to Paula and the family, they said, ‘If it’s really something you want to do, do it.’ I’m of the mindset to fill the void that John left and then get somebody younger in there and train them and then they can do it for 20 years. Whether it will happen or not, you never know.”
“It was a good time. I was going to retire from KSHSAA either this year or next year, so it all came into place. I’m a big believer in that. I believe if something’s going to happen, it’s going to happen for a reason. That’s the way my whole career has been. It’s exciting and I’m looking forward to it.”