Joe Beard devoted 20 years to students of Ludlow High School as teacher, coach, administrator
Apr 9, 2018In each of those roles, he impressed people with his drive and compassion.“Students, teachers, parents, I’ve not met anybody who had anything bad to say about Joe,” said his long-time friend Cory Highfield, who still teaches at the high school. “He’s always been a class act and had respect for everybody.”Joe BeardBeard passed away Sunday evening at Hospice of St. Elizabeth in Edgewood after battling a rare form of brain cancer. He was 57.Visitation will be 3-7 p.m. on Thursday at Middendorf-Bullock Funeral Home in Ludlow. Following the visitation, there will be a funeral service at 7 p.m. Burial will be in Arlington East Hill Cemetery in Indiana.A native of Rushville, Indiana, Beard joined the Ludlow High School faculty in 1994 as a special education teacher and boys head basketball coach. He left coaching in 2005 to become the school’s assistant principal and athletic director. He was later promoted to principal and held that position until his retirement in 2014.Mike Borchers, superintendent of Ludlow Independent Schools, started teaching at the high school one year after Beard joined the faculty as a special education teacher.“He had a big space in his heart for kids who came from tough backgrounds,” Borchers said. “He always tried to work with those kids, knowing that some of the barriers they had were bigger than anything some of our other teachers had to overcome.”Beard was diagnosed with cancer last fall. Highfield said his condition improved after receiving chemotherapy treatments for several months, but he had a relapse a few weeks ago.“He touched a lot of lives,” Highfield said. “There was a lot of behind-the-scenes stuff that Joe would do for kids that nobody ever knew about. If a kid needed something, Joe was always going to make sure the kid got whatever they needed. I’m sure they appreciated that and can look back now knowing that Joe was there to help them.”Beard was head coach of the Ludlow boys basketball program for 11 seasons and his teams compiled a 162-118 r... (User-generated content )
