Waldo Hugo Ost
June 29, 1938 ~ May 17, 2025
Waldo H. Ost, 86, Sioux Falls, SD, passed away on Saturday, May 17, 2025, at Sanford USD Medical Center in Sioux Falls.
A Remembrance Service will be held at 7:00 p.m. on Thursday, May 22, 2025, at First Congregational Church in Sioux Falls. A visitation will be held after the service. A livestream of the service is available by clicking HERE.
In lieu of flowers, Wally’s family requests that you honor his memory by supporting the International Music Camp or your local school music programs.
Wally was born June 29, 1938, to Fred and Selma (Mohl) Ost of rural Beulah, ND. In his boyhood on the farm, he sang and played piano at home and in church and entertained the cows with his virtuosic whistling. After finishing eight grades in six years at a one-room country school, he graduated from Beulah High School in 1955, having played tuba in the school band, and composed a march for the North Dakota Future Farmers of America state convention.
During his music education studies at Concordia College, Wally played tuba in the Fargo/Moorhead Symphony Orchestra, and may have been the second person in the USA to perform Ralph Vaughan Williams’ tuba concerto. Upon graduating from Concordia in 1959, Wally began his teaching career as the band and choir director in Terry, Montana. One family with three band students took a special interest in this first-year teacher, and he soon took a special interest in their oldest daughter. On June 14, 1961, Esther Harris became Mrs. Wally Ost, a marriage that would last nearly 64 years.
The newlyweds first settled in South Dakota, where Esther attended Dakota Wesleyan University and Wally taught band in Emery and Platte. They next spent five years in Ketchikan, Alaska, where Wally was the band director at Schoenbar Junior High and Ketchikan High School, and their oldest daughter, Marian, was born.
They moved to Beulah, ND in 1972, to take over Ost Septic Tank business, which provided liquid-sanitation services and piano tuning(!) across much of western North Dakota. Many music recitals were hosted in the OST company’s spacious lobby, which featured two grand pianos and a church organ. Three generations of the Ost family sang together in the Knife River Chorale’s 1976 Bicentennial Tour of North Dakota, for which Wally also provided the concert-grand piano and piano-moving truck. Once their daughter Muriel and son Dan were born, the Osts relocated to Minot for educational opportunities, and the entire family became deeply involved in Minot’s cultural community. Wally himself performed in the Minot Symphony Orchestra, Minot City Band, Western Plains Opera, and numerous community theatre productions, often with his children onstage or in the pit orchestra with him.
Upon the 1991 death of his longtime friend Glenn Siverson, Wally stepped out of semi-retirement to fill Glenn’s position as Canton (SD) High School band director for the rest of the 1991-92 school year, including a by-invitation performance at the South Dakota Bandmasters Convention. As a direct result of his new South Dakota connections, Wally was “instrumental” (pun intended) (he loved puns!) in launching the Brass Band of Minot, which led to him serving on the national board of the North American Brass Band Association and creating the official NABBA summer brass band program at the International Music Camp.
After losing their house to the devastating floods of 2011, Wally and Esther moved to Sioux Falls, SD, where Wally had been on Sanford’s organ transplant waiting list since 2009. On August 20, 2012 he received a healthy kidney that revitalized his body and mind, allowing him to continue composing, arranging, mentoring and encouraging for many more years.
Wally is survived by his wife, Esther Ost (Sioux Falls); daughters, Marian and John Casey (Sioux Falls), and Muriel and Robert Jackson (Maple Grove, MN); son, Daniel and Shelley Ost (Memphis, TN); grandchildren, Connor and Samantha Ost; many “adapted” children and grandchildren, including Jacob Pagone and Frances DeArmond (Sioux Falls), Jeremy Nygard (Bismarck, ND), Joan Haaland Paddock (McMinnville, OR) and Zephyr Hillebrand Buettner (Austin, TX); and musical friends around the world.
Wally was preceded in death by his parents, Fred and Selma (Mohl) Ost; and his sister, Lorraine (Ost) Biloff.
I am sad but very happy at the same time. I know where wally went and Im sure my dad was there to greet him. Wally and Esther and their kids welcomed me with open arms and helped make my childhood a good one. Wally was an amazing man of God!