by Vera Jirnov
Athletic director and Spanish teacher Bernie Pearce has worked at Ouray school for 44 years and is retiring in May. So how did Mr. Pearce end up in Ouray? He graduated from Aspen High School in 1975. He went to college for four years and “wanted to become a teacher”.
He was looking for a job in the area and the “job search showed that there was an availability open in Ouray for math,” which was his major. The interview ended up going well and he knew someone from Ouray and thought “maybe this is a good place to apply.”
Mr. Pearce said he “applied here and about two other places, but felt best suited for here.” He has taught math and Spanish at the school and has “been here the whole time.” He never left to teach anywhere else.
One of Mr. Pearce's favorite memories was “when the girl's basketball team qualified for state and they were able to get there because they beat Ridgway in the district tournament,” he said. “They had struggled mightily against Ridgway every year, so everyone was just totally ecstatic.”
The school has changed in the past 44 years. “There used to be an old boiler that served the whole building, and it was a coal-fired furnace” Mr. Pearce shared. “They would grind up the clinkers from the coal-fired furnace into small chunks and they would lay a pathway so all winter long there was no way anyone could slip and slide.”
Another change Mr. Pearce pointed out is falling enrollment. “Some classes do better or more easily with numbers,” he said. “I think our teachers do a marvelous job to keep them going” even with fewer students.
Mr. Pearce believes that the most significant change he witnessed during his time in the school is “the adaptations that we made to keep the school going during the Covid years.” He marveled at “the way people came together to make things happen and keep the community going.”
Mr. Pearce also mentioned that “when the remodel happened, it kind of gave new life to the school and gave us more places to be and helped us to give more options of classrooms so there could be more classes.”
Sophomore Lis Ray plays many sports, including track and cross country. Lis’s favorite thing about cross country is the competition. You have to train for the competitions and “Mr. Pearce doesn't make the workouts boring,” Lis said: he “always congratulations you after doing the smallest things” and “is supportive.”
Superintendent Tod Lokey believes that it is important to note that “there are certain characteristics and elements to Mr. Pearce that we can never replace” when he goes, and that Mr. Pearce’s “44 years are an incredible contribution to a community.”
Not only the school but “the whole region relied on Mr. Pearce,” said Mr. Lokey, in recognition of which he was named Colorado’s Division 1A Athletic Director of the Year in 2021. Mr. Lokey also mentioned that he finds Mr. Pearce at the school “at so many hours of the day just dedicating his whole being to the operations of the school.”
Another important thing to note, said Mr. Lokey, is that “Mr. Pearce was also the secretary/treasurer of the San Juan Basin League Athletics group.” With Mr. Pearce retiring, “A different district in our region will take over the management of the San Juan Basin League.”
Mr. Pearce “used to carry all these duties on his shoulder” and this year “has worked really hard to make sure people have replaced his role on so many of those,” said Mr. Lokey. Because of this “we're not looking at a landslide in the end.”
“Maybe the reason I've been here as long as I have is because of acceptance,” Mr. Pearce said. One piece of advice he would give future teachers “is to come here, get involved in the community of the school and the community of the town and you'll be accepted and it will give you a chance to show your acceptance of other people. It is a wonderful environment to work in,” he added.
“I'm really honored to have been able to be here this many years and see all the students that have come through, and that is one of the things that have kept it fresh for me,” Mr. Pearce said. “Somebody can sit here in the same four walls all the time, well that might be true, but it's the dynamics of the activities through the students and the teachers and the people that make it fresh.”