Retired Fox High School science teacher Art Kasey has died.
Arnold Police reported that Kasey was found dead in his home at approximately 9:45 a.m. today, Oct. 21. A time and cause of death was not available today.
Kasey was 84, police reported.
“This is probably the saddest news that we can come across,” Fox High School assistant principal Joe Salsman said. “He taught here for 44 years. He was the most beloved teacher to ever teach at Fox High School. He was probably one of the most beloved citizens in the Arnold community. If you lived in Arnold, you knew who he was or had heard of him.”
Kasey taught geoscience courses at Fox High from 1971 through 2015. Along with teaching, he led the Fox Chess Club, Discovery Club and Weather Club.
During his teaching career, Kasey earned the 2004 Walmart Good Works Teacher of the Year award, 1995 Jefferson County Educator of the Year and 1988 and 2014 Excellence in Teaching awards from Emerson Electric.
Kasey was a member of the first class to be inducted into the Fox High School Alumni and Staff Hall of Fame in March 2023. The school, which already had an athletic hall of fame, created the honor last year to recognize staff members who worked at the school for at least 15 years and students who had graduated at least 10 years prior to induction in the hall.
Kasey, who grew up in Kentucky, planned to be a geologist and was working on a doctorate in geology at the University of Missouri-Columbia when circumstances led him into teaching instead. He had worked part time as a teaching assistant at Mizzou and before that at the University of Tennessee.
When Kasey retired from Fox High, Arnold Mayor Ron Counts declared May 2, 2015, Mr. Art Kasey Day, and Kasey received a diploma from Fox High with the 2015 graduating class.
Salsman said today that Kasey’s family had not finalized funeral arrangements.
Fox C-6 School District Board of Education vice president Todd Scott said he believed Kasey would be buried in Kentucky, and the family plans to hold a service in his honor in the Arnold area.
For more information about Kasey, read this week’s Arnold-Imperial Leader.