B.J. Marsh, 80, gave cross-country bus tours and renamed Missouri State

B.J. Marsh, who led thousands of Springfieldians on bus tours across the country and then represented them in the Missouri House with maverick flair, died Thursday morning from complications of COVID-19.

He was 80 years old.

Born in tiny Pennsboro in Dade County, he graduated from Greenfield High School and came to the Queen City in 1958.

"I had a 1956 Chevy, a World War II haircut and a gray flannel suit," he later said.

It was enough to get him in the door at Barth’s, a clothing store on the square, where he sold shoes before going to work at the Insurance Services Office of Missouri.

During his 13 years there, he started driving tour buses part-time, took a liking to the business and decided to start his own.

Marsh ran his namesake firm for more than four decades, starting with junkets to ballgames in St. Louis and Kansas City and eventually expanding coast-to-coast, from fall tours of New England to 23-day journeys through Alaska.

In between, he booked trips to catch everything from Pope John Paul II to Elvis Presley, whose Graceland mansion inspired the dazzling wall-to-wall mirrors that cover the inside of Marsh’s turn-of-the-century home at National Avenue and Sunshine Street.

When ticket sellers in Kansas City tried to stop him from booking seats to see the King with a 10-per-buyer limit, he hired 10 taxi drivers to buy more for him. He hired Boy Scouts to do the same in Tulsa.

He worked hard to sell every ticket, too.

One time when he was driving through Austin, Texas, taking people to see Southwest Missouri State play in March Madness, he noticed people at a stoplight looking for seats.

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He stopped the bus, hopped out, sold the tickets and was back at the wheel when the light turned green.

Marty Marsh, the oldest of two sons, said his dad’s favorite destinations included cities like New York, Philadelphia and Washington D.C. with sites that appealed to his patriotic appreciation for the country’s early history. But his wife, Joni Marsh, said he loved them all.

“He just liked to be on the road,” she said.

In a 1978 profile in the Springfield Leader and Press, Marsh, then 38, told a reporter he distinguished himself by making sure every guest left his bus happy.

“It’s important to me to please the people,” he said. “Without them, there wouldn’t be Marsh Travel.”

Friends, family and former colleagues said he was a natural.

“He had a huge personality, as big as they get,” said Tom Fowler, a longtime friend who got to know Marsh during his time in the Missouri legislature. “He was funny, witty, smart — he could talk to anybody.”

Marsh’s thing for people went beyond business, family members said.

Marty Marsh said his dad also dressed up as Jaybird, the mascot for St. John's Regional Health Center, in the 1980s to bring joy to ailing children.

“He just loved seeing people happy,” he said. “That was what he lived for.”

B.J. Marsh also served people through politics.

In 1988, he ran for a seat in the Missouri House left open when Democratic Rep. Bob Holden ran for state treasurer.

In his announcement to the News-Leader, Marsh said he was running because of his “natural interest in people and their welfare.”

Thirty-one years later, he told the News-Leader’s Steve Pokin he just wanted government health insurance. Either way, he ran a serious campaign focused on returning a recent tax windfall to taxpayers, flipped the district and headed to Jefferson City.

Marsh’s Republican party was deep in the minority at the time, so passing major legislation was generally out of the question. Still, he found ways to help his constituents with whatever they needed.

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In a 1992 interview, he touted bills that helped a Southwest Missouri State fraternity house with a land swap and stopped the Missouri Water Patrol from ticketing sailboarders.

“He cared about his people, and he kept things in perspective,” former Rep. Craig Hosmer, a Democrat, recalled Thursday. “He never thought he was bigger or better than them or their issues just because he got elected.”

Chuck Wooten, a fellow Republican who came into the House with Marsh in 1988, said his friend also wasn’t afraid to put principle over party politics.

“Sometimes every Republican on the floor would vote one way and he’d vote the other,” he said. “But he'd make up his own mind, and that’s the way it would be.”

That wasn’t enough to win a third consecutive term in 1992, when Democrat Mike Schilling beat him by 59 votes.

But even in defeat, Marsh found a way to do his constituents a solid.

When some of his friends urged him to demand a recount on the tight margin, he rebuffed them, telling the News-Leader, “that would cost taxpayers money.”

“It’s a tough seat to hold,” he added. “(Schilling) won it fair and square.”

Eight years later, Marsh took it back and never lost again, serving four consecutive terms from 2001-2009.

And with his party in the majority, he eventually got the chance to do something really big for his constituents: pass the bill that dropped the “Southwest” from Southwest Missouri State.

After Norma Champion got the name change through the Senate, Marsh worked across the aisle to corral 120 votes in the House to put an exclamation point on a decades-long effort.

He also maintained that independent streak.

When his party passed a sweeping anti-abortion bill, he objected because it made it harder to offer sexual education aimed at reducing unplanned pregnancies. He was the only Republican in the region to do so.

A year later, he lamented to a reporter that his party was spending too much time on divisive social issues rather than pocketbook concerns.

“We better be more worried about people having more money in their pockets than whether people are having abortions,” he said.

He even told the News-Leader he might run for state Senate as an independent as he neared term limits in 2008. He ultimately retired instead.

He kept in touch, though – having a house at such a busy intersection made it easy in election years.

“Best political sign location in town,” said Congressman Billy Long, another friend. “Very guarded on who he’d let put up a sign. I usually had to con him into it.”

Wooten, his former House colleague, said Marsh paid attention to local politics, too.

“He’d call and be mad at city council or county commission and then say I should run for office again,” Wooten said. “And I’d say, ‘Well, why don’t you go run for it?’”

Marsh also cared deeply about his family.

He was a loving father, Marty Marsh said, and he never shied away from challenging his sons to be better people.

He passed on that independent streak, too.

"He taught me about 'being yourself,' standing up for yourself, and sometimes being stubborn," younger son Monte Marsh wrote in a post on his Instagram.

Marty Marsh said his dad also came to every game for his grandchildren and was always helping out with large purchases.

“He helped us buy every car, every house,” Marty Marsh said. “He called a few days ago and said he was going to bring us some pie.”

“He just loved to do things for other people.”

Marsh is survived by his wife, Joni; a brother, Frankie; two sons, Marty and Monte; a daughter, Destiny; and eight grandchildren.

No memorial services had yet been planned by the News-Leader's deadline.

News-Leader reporter Steve Pokin contributed to this report.

Austin Huguelet is the News-Leader's politics reporter. Got something he should know? Have a question? Call him at 417-403-8096 or email him at ahuguelet@news-leader.com.