Westley Floyd Deitchler
Westley Floyd Deitchler was born, March 6, 1942, in Forsyth, Montana to Donald Louis and Irene Elaine Cornelius Deitchler. He passed away June 25, 2025, in Aurora, Colorado.
Wes grew up as a country kid. He lived the first years of his life near Kaycee, Wyoming, where he was joined by a brother and a sister. The family moved back to Forsyth where another sister and two brothers came along. Wes started school in Forsyth and made many life-long friends. He joined the Cub Scouts and 4-H. In 1955, the family moved to a farm in Cartersville. Here, Wes helped on the farm, hunted, and baby sat the younger kids. While in high school he played football, basketball, baseball and ran track. He slept through the Hebgen Lake earthquake while he was in Dillon for Boys State. He loved academic studies and graduated as valedictorian from Rosebud High School in 1960.
At Montana State College in Bozeman, he earned a BS in secondary education in 1965. Wes was active in politics and was elected president of the Associated Students of Montana State College and was selected for the Outstanding Student award. Faculty members chose him for the Septemviri honor society. He was one of 34 Montana State students selected for Who’s Who in American Colleges and Universities. He spoke at the Fifth Annual Governor’s Prayer Breakfast in Helena and was invited to the White House twice by President Johnson.
From 1965 to 1968, Wes served in the Peace Corps in Ethiopia. He taught school, was in community development and was promoted to associate director of the Peace Corps in Ethiopia. After returning home, he sold insurance, worked on ranches and eventually became a carpenter at the Colstrip power plants.
In 1979 he married Karen McMordie and became the stepfather of four children, Angie, Wendy, Mike and Pat.
At this time, Wes joined the Libertarian Party and served on the National Committee for one year. He ran for office several times but was unsuccessful.
Karen and Wes divorced in 1985, but he remained close to the family.
He lived in Colstrip, Forsyth and Miles City for years while working at the power plants and writing political articles. He became afflicted by Parkinson’s disease and in 2018 moved to his brother’s home in Aurora, Colorado. Just before his death, he completed a book on Capitalism versus Fascism. It is available on Amazon.
Wes was preceded in death by his parents, his brother, Larry Deitchler, and his sister, Thelma Beyl. He is survived by his ex-wife, Karen, his stepchildren, Angie (Bill) Brickey of Arlington, WA, Wendy Deitchler-Heidt of Eugene, OR, Michael (Robbi) McMordie of Fernley, NV, Pat (Candy) McMordie of Ontario, OR, several grandchildren and several great-grandchildren. He is also survived by his sister, Barbara DeCock of Three Forks, his brother, Emory (Mary Jo) Deitchler of Meridian, Idaho, his brother, Jeffrey Deitchler of Aurora, CO, his brother-in-law, Jim Beyl of Rosebud and his sister-in-law, Christine Deitchler of Lovelady, TX, as well as a large extended family.
There will be a memorial and lunch at the Haugo Centre, 483 Rosebud St, Forsyth, Montana at 11:00 a.m., September 6, 2025. Cremation has taken place. Inurnment will be at 2:00 p.m. at the Rosebud County Cemetery.
Service Schedule
Memorial Service
11:00 am
Saturday September 6, 2025
Haugo Center
483 Rosebud Street
Forsyth, Montana 59327
Service Schedule
Memorial Service
11:00 am
Saturday September 6, 2025
Haugo Center
483 Rosebud Street
Forsyth, Montana 59327
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Leslie Manning says
Glad to have met U great guy
Francis Smith says
What a great man. I learned more from you and your brother through my high school years than I did from all my teachers.really enjoyed all your writings and wish the world had more great people like you. Am so sorry to hear we now have one less.
Bill Huntzicker says
When I was a freshman at Montana State, Wes Deitchler was the consummate campus politician – an independent student body president in a system dominated by the fraternities. His Independent Student Association (ISA) meant that he was not a candidate from a fraternity. He encouraged me and helped me run for freshman class president and I couldn’t have gotten elected without his help. Each fraternity nominated a candidate and I ran as an independent against about nine others – the same strategy Wes used to become president of the entire student body. He was an interesting, intelligent leader and helpful adviser. He organized a moving Easter sunrise service overlooking a beautiful mountain valley and he led Bible study groups. During that time, I met his parents and his brother Jeff, sister Barbara, and visited their home, which was all that remained of the town of Cartersville. After reading this obituary, I realized it was only a year. Hard to believe considering how much he taught me in that time. We visited and argued politics occasionally since then in Ismay and Miles City. The last time we talked was on the phone last spring when he was living in Colorado. He remarked on the contrast – how much more liberal I had become and how much he had moved in the other direction against government power. Every time I hear the hymn “How Great Thou Art” I think of Wes because that was his favorite. He was a delight and an inspiration.
Harriet Sleaford Jansen says
Have known Westley for many years. It is always had to see the ones we love depart from this life. May his family always remember the good times. Speak of him often as others cared . Sending prayers to all of his family. Harriet Sleaford Jansen
Ron Mogen says
Seems I’ve known Wes most all of my life. He and I started first grade together at the old “Hammond” school on the corner of River Street and Third Avenue in Forsyth. I figured he was the only kid in class smarter than me. What a shock! Later, in the Eighth Grade, he and Johnny Sims and I were the best of friends; Johnny and I would arrive on the Oronoco school bus, then wait under the giant cottonwood tree on the south side of the school ground for Wes to get there from Slaughterhouse Creek. We were all country kids, and no one but time itself could tear us apart, back then. Then Wes moved to Rosebud. We continued to be friends, though, because our folks ran cattle together way out on Cottonwood Creek, where Wes’s grandmother had homesteaded years before. I was with him at Boys State (in Dillon) during that Hebgen Lake earthquake too. It was then that I finally realized that he must be way smarter than me because he managed to sleep through the whole thing while I lay there in some violently shaking top bunk bed scared to death, wishing I was back home in Forsyth with Mom. We were together at MSU too (MSC back then) when Wes was elected president of the Independent Associated Students, and I just read about it in the college newspaper. Later on in life Wes made a real effort to personally educate me in what he had learned about politics but I just could not understand. What I did understand, though, was that Wes was always, first and foremost a dependable, trustworthy, and caring person who believed very deeply in friends and family and what he perceived to be right. And he was willing to go the limit to try to peacefully bring it about. Who could ask for more?
To Karen and all the kids and “grands” and “greats”, and Emory and Barb and Jeff, and to all the good times you’ve spent together, I wish you peace in your memories of Wes.
ron
Sandi Bruce says
Jeff I’m so sorry for your loss!
Jordan Cornelius says
I believe Wes was a man that was born beyond his years and had a passion to live as all were man were created, free and independent of all corrupt goverence. He had the courage and stamina to live his life by these principles, at personal sacrifice, until the end.
I had the pleasure of knowing Wes as a kid and in my adult life. The three things I’ll never forget about him were his home made wooden license plates that read, “Free Man” he drove around with, his statement that we “we boo and jeer at the people build businesses, create jobs, and make more than their fair share; but cheer the politicians that promise taking these people’s dollars and giving you 50 cents for doing nothing”, and his ability to sing a song, that hadn’t been sang for 50 years, from memory at 83 years old.
May he find the peace he didn’t find in this life in the next.
Dee Batey, says
Rest in Peace Wes. Sending prayers to the Deitchler family.