Mr. Jason Bartelsmeyer, more commonly known to students as Mr. B, has returned this semester to Rolla High School. On October 4, 2021, Bartelsmeyer suffered a heart attack while mowing his lawn. Luckily for the choir kids at RHS, he has been treated and is grateful to be back teaching.

“I had a heart attack on October 4 [while] mowing my yard,” said Bartelsmeyer. “Thankfully I had firemen that came and gave me CPR, and my neighbor called 911. I was admitted to Phelps Health and they kind of… [made] sure I was stable. I was then flown to Mercy in Springfield, Missouri, where they put a stent in.”
Unfortunately, a stent wasn’t enough to fix the damage caused by the heart attack, so Bartelsmeyer had to undergo surgery.
“Besides the stent, they realized I needed some more heart surgery done, so they had a quadruple bypass, which is a pretty common thing these days,” said Bartelsmeyer.
Bartelsmeyer’s few months of recovery in the hospital left him missing many people at Rolla High School.
“The worst part, I’ll be honest, is being away from my students. I just really missed the kids and certainly missed my accompanist, Mr. William Owen,” said Bartelsmeyer. “Just the daily connectivity with students, you know? You build a bond with your students and you build a relationship with them, so when you don’t see them for three months, you just miss being with them.”
Luckily, Bartelsmeyer wasn’t completely cut off from the students and staff at RHS. Many people took it upon themselves to go the extra mile and reach out, some even literally.
“I had several teachers that sent cards and donated money,” said Bartelsmeyer. “I had several secretaries that came to see me. I had my students send cards, send emails, send video messages. It was very nice. It made me want to come back even more. It’s nice to know that you’re missed and certainly, I missed them, but it’s even nicer when you know that you mean something to somebody.”
Since returning, Bartlesmeyer has faced a few physical challenges, including piles of paperwork and back pain.
“It has been overwhelming, and I had a lot of paperwork to get caught up with coming back,” said Bartelsmeyer. “The more overwhelming part is [that] I do get tired and I didn’t used to. So about fifth or sixth hour these days, I realize I need to sit down a little bit and kind of rest myself. So that’s been a little bit challenging for me.”
Overall, Bartelsmeyer is glad to be back in the classroom with his students teaching music again.
“The favorite part of returning would just be the rehearsal. The musical that’s going well, that was nice to come back to, just all the students that are eager to sing makes me very happy and so just seeing that is awesome.”