An avid sports fan, to be sure.

An avid Knoch person would be a more accurate description of Regis Schiebel, who died Sunday at age 86.

Schiebel served as assistant principal at Knoch High School for years, retiring from that position in 1993. He also handled the public address announcing for football games at Knoch Stadium for more than 50 years.

“He was the first and only (public address) announcer there from the time the place was built until he retired only a few years ago,” said Scott Briggs, longtime radio broadcaster of Knoch football and basketball games. “He was very dedicated to that school.

“He never missed a game.”

But Schiebel was about far more than Knoch High School sports.

Retired Knoch football coach Mike King — a graduate of the school himself — said everyone who went through that high school knew him “because he was involved in so many different things.

“It's easy to relate his name to sports,” King added. “He was an advisor to the student council program, he was involved with the foreign exchange program. ... Football, basketball games, musicals, any event going on at Knoch, he was there.”

Schiebel was one of the founders of the Knoch High School Sports Hall of Fame and served on the committee for that organization. The hall of fame was formed in 2015.Schiebel himself was inducted the following year.“He deserved it. We didn't want to waste any time,” Briggs, also on the hall of fame committee, said of his induction.Schiebel served as president of the South Butler County School District Scholarship Foundation. That organization awards thousands of dollars in scholarships and loans to Knoch graduates, allowing them to further their education.Caring about students as people was a staple of Schiebel's service to the school district.“When he interviewed a prospective teacher, he wanted to know in what way that teacher was going to impact the lives of the students,” King said. “That meant more to him than a teacher's wizardry of subject knowledge.“Through that scholarship foundation, he impacted thousands of kids. He was able to help unify all of that funding to enable kids to continue their education beyond high school.“That man was the embodiment of Knoch High School,” King added.Along with his work in the South Butler School District, Schiebel was a member of the Butler County Rotary and served as a board member of the Butler County YMCA and on the Butler County Hall of Fame board of directors.“He served us well on the board,” retired county HOF board member Jim Lokhaiser said. “Rege seemed to know every athlete to come through Knoch. He was a great source of information that way.“He was a tremendous asset to the Knoch area. I know he's going to be missed there.”Schiebel was a Butler County Sports Hall of Fame board member for nearly 10 years.Former BCSHOF president Dan Cunningham said he appreciated Schiebel's tireless dedication to the organization.“You could always count on him,” Cunningham said. “Rege would always do the extra thing. ... Help set up our annual banquet, escort inductees in, whatever we needed, he was there.“When he joined a cause, a group, a foundation, he was all in.”Schiebel's true dedication was to Knoch High School, first as a math teacher, then as assistant principal — always to the students.“If anyone truly bled blue and gold, it was Rege Schiebel,” King said. “That school was his life.”

Regis Schiebel