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Award leaves debate coach speechless

Ex-DHS teacher ‘thrilled to death’
Former Durango High School teacher Tony Myers recently received the Sharon Wilch Lifetime Achievement Award.

Eloquence, and even verbosity, under fire are supposed to be the hallmarks of a life spent as a speech and debate coach.

But this month, a former Durango High School teacher and star speech coach was left struggling for words when he learned that he’d won the Sharon Wilch Lifetime Achievement Award.

Anthony Myers, who now teaches at Grand Junction High School, said he was “just thrilled to death.”

The Colorado High School Activities Association gives the award annually to a teacher of extraordinary accomplishment.

“They give it out pretty darn selectively,” said Myers, who still sounded giddy in a Wednesday phone interview. “It’s not one of those things that you get after coaching for four or five years as a pat on the back. It’s given by your peers in recognition of a lifetime’s work.”

Myers’ son, Paul Myers, who lives in Durango, said he is immensely proud of his father.

“This is the culmination of over 30 years in public education teaching speech and debate. For someone like him who was so well-known in the community, here in Durango, for so many years to find success in Grand Junction, it’s special,” he said.

The award was announced earlier in March, when Myers was in Douglas County directing the state speech and debate tournament.

Myers said he’s still reeling.

“Even a few weeks removed from it, I wake up and go, ‘Wow! That was really something!”

Myers stopped teaching at DHS six years ago. He said though he loves teaching high school speech and debate in Grand Junction, he’s on the cusp of retirement.

“It’s one of the great honors of my life. I’ve been teaching for 34 years now – 20 of them at Durango High School – and it’s certainly an honor I’ll take to my grave and look back on being one of the most wonderful things that’s happened in my life,” he said.

He credited his decades at Durango High School with much of his success.

“The only reason I’ve been able to get an accolade like this at the end of my career particularly concerns Durango, that community, the great kids I had at Durango High School,” he said.

cmcallister@durangoherald.com



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