Randy Durr honored as Champion of Education

Retired Worland High School teacher Randy Durr was honored at Monday's Washakie County School District No. 1 Board meeting for earning the Champion of Education award.

According to the Wyoming Association of School Administrators website, The Von Dahl Champion of Education award, "is the highest non-member award presented by our association. It is given to an individual/individuals that have made a significant positive difference in Wyoming K-12 education."

Champions of Education were announced at the Wyoming School Board Association in November 2023.

Durr has spent 42 years in education, the last 15 of which have been in Worland. Over that time he served as the principal of Worland High School, the guidance counselor, and the AP United States history instructor. In recent years he also served as the Assistant Coach for both boys and girls golf.

Durr retired at the end of the 2023 school year from Worland High school and took a position as superintendent of schools in Harlowton, Montana.

After completing his degree, Durr went to Rupert, Idaho for four years to serve as the Assistant Principal of Minico High School and teach Modern United States History. He named the superintendent of his school, Gene Snapp, as a main influence in how he approached administration for the rest of his career.

Following his time in Idaho, Durr returned to Montana for the next 16 years. He worked as a teacher, Activities Director, assistant principal, dean of students, principal and superintendent over this time. He also coached football and basketball.

During that time he also began taking students on his famous Washington, D.C. experience trips, where Durr goes with his students on a week-long excursion to the Capital of the United States, giving students an opportunity to tour places such as the US Capitol Building and Arlington Cemetery. Beginning in 1994, he went on 12 of these trips before ever coming to Worland.

Durr said in an interview in May 2023 that a contributing factor to retiring was conjecture about whether AP classes would still be offered at Worland High School that turned out to be true. This would eliminate his AP United States History class, making Durr's future as a teacher uncertain.

He continued, saying, "I just thought this is a good time for me to get out, I've had a good run of 15 years here. I sat on that retirement from November until March, and then a friend of mine reached out and asked me if I'd be interested in applying to a job for a small school superintendent in Montana which I was before I came here. I thought about it a little bit, and I went over and talked to the people in Harlowton, Montana, and we came to an agreement. So, I'm actually going to go be the superintendent of schools there, and I'll do that until I don't want to do it anymore and then I'll retire."

Durr, after some reminiscing on his time teaching in Worland, said that his fondest memories of his career have been the ones made teaching at Worland over the last 15 years, specifically the Washington, D.C. trips. He said "The D.C. Trips since 2014 are probably the greatest memories simply because it's a different environment. I've gotten to get kids out of Worland to see the outside world and see what our nation's capital is like."

Durr was honored in 2023 by the Wyoming American Legion as Educator of the Year. In 2016 Durr received the William Woolston Distinguished Service Award from Rocky Mountain College. The award is given to a person who has significantly contributed to RMC through service to the college's

athletics program.