Retired superintendent reflects on 30 years in Toppenish

July 05--TOPPENISH, Wash. -- When Steve Myers and his family arrived in Toppenish in 1983, the then-high school English teacher and basketball coach thought the family's stay would be temporary.

That supposed brief stay turned into more than 30 years in Toppenish.

But now, it seems Myers and his wife will finally make a move.

Myers retired from his post as the superintendent of the Yakima-based Educational Service District 105 Thursday, and later this summer will move to Arizona. Besides his six years at the agency, Myers worked for and in Yakima Valley schools for three decades.

"When we came to Washington state and Toppenish, we thought we'd stay for three or four years, move back to the East Coast," he said. "We told (my parents) we would come back -- but we never did. This is our home."

In a recent interview, Myers, 67, didn't hesitate to discuss what he thinks he did well as a local educator and administrator -- as well as what still haunts him.

Myers began his career in northwest Indiana and the outskirts of the Chicago area. While his wife worked in a more urban school, he worked in a rural school. His wife left teaching early on, but he stayed.

The couple moved to North Carolina, where Myers' parents and siblings lived. His family always assumed the eldest son would return. But his time back east was short.

In 1983, he took a job at the Lower Valley district of Toppenish.

"North Carolina ranked 42 in the nation in teacher pay," he said. "I came to Washington, they were ranked 9. I went to being an administrator in North Carolina, came to Toppenish as a teacher and got a pay raise."

Gil Matthias, a Toppenish insurance agent who met Myers in college, said one of his clients at the time was the Toppenish superintendent. The district needed a new basketball coach and Matthias immediately thought of Myers, who coached basketball in North Carolina at the time.

"We flew him out here and gave him the red carpet treatment and when he looked at the beautiful A.J. Strom gymnasium he was hooked," Matthias said. "And the rest is history as they say."

While money and basketball influenced his move west, why he stuck around was not.

When he arrived in Toppenish High, he said the dropout rate was close to 50 percent. He found educators, though, who saw the challenges they faced working with some students as "reasons for living" and working hard to improve lives. Myers said he adopted small but effective methods -- such as providing breakfast in school, waiting for them as the buses dropped them off at school, and memorizing as many first names as possible -- as ways of letting students know he cared,

Within a year, Toppenish promoted Myers to assistant principal. He took over as high school principal in 1992, became Toppenish's assistant superintendent nine years later, and was promoted to superintendent in 2003. He remained as superintendent until he accepted the ESD 105 job in 2010.

Myers learned early on as superintendent actions -- no matter how small or well-intentioned -- can have significant consequences. In January 2004, Myers made the decision to remove beef from school menus in light of growing fears of mad cow disease. The first case of mad cow disease in U.S. cattle was reported a month earlier in Mabton.

Myers said it is one of the most embarrassing moments of his career, as it rattled the trust between him and the Lower Valley.

"Next thing I know, it's on NPR, news around the country," he said. "'The superintendent had taken beef off the menu.' Shoot, I'm in Toppenish, where people are cattle ranchers. I got in my car and apologized to a lot of people. Nobody else took beef off the menu. But I was worried that a kid would get sick ... We overreacted."

On a more personal front, he said some students "slipped past him." Myers didn't give any specific names, but he admitted he gave up on some students.

"There's children that I felt I spent loads of time with, I saw no growth," he said. "And then I met them as adults and (they) were successful. It literally broke my heart that I had given up on them."

He didn't hesitate on naming successes, either.

One of the accomplishments which stood out was teaching the youngest of students. As the Toppenish superintendent, Myers helped open one of the first in-district preschool programs in the state. The Toppenish preschool co-op was established during the 2004-05 school year and involved preschool partnerships from local Head Start programs, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the school district.

His successes in preschool caught the attention of Harvard University -- the Ivy League school invited Myers to speak at a 2010 early childhood conference.

As the superintendent of ESD 105, early childhood education was near and dear to him, too. Last year, the agency in partnership with two others won a $63 million grant to operate and expand Head Start programs regionally.

Current Toppenish Superintendent John Cerna said Myers' work on early childhood education has left its mark locally -- and nationally, given Harvard's interest in Lower Valley preschools.

"If he wants to be remembered, that's his most critical piece," said Cerna, who first met and worked with Myers as a high school teacher and coach in 1983. "For (Steve), that was probably his biggest accomplishment."

With the clearing of his work schedule now all but complete, a few thoughts post-retirement pop into Myers' mind. He could travel more. He could do more volunteer work in food banks, which Myers said he didn't do enough of in the Valley. He could go to more schools and read to kids, which Myers added he does even when on vacation. He hinted at doing part-time consulting down the road.

The plan is to take it slow -- he has worked long hours for decades.

"My biggest problem is if I'm not really careful, I'll retire and four months later I'm working 50, 60 hours again," he joked.

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