Bettye Myers, a longtime faculty member at Texas Woman’s University, passed away on February 18. She was 92 years old.
Dr. Myers held teaching positions at the University of Louisiana-Lafayette, Alabama College, and the University of Michigan before joining the faculty at Texas Woman’s University in 1961. She served as a professor of kinesiology until her retirement as professor emerita in 2015. In 2016, the university’s butterfly garden was named in her honor.
In addition to her role at TWU, she was also very involved with the surrounding Denton, Texas, community. She served in a number of organizations including AIDS Services of North Texas, Cross Timbers Girl Scouts Council, the Denton City-County Day School, the Denton Parks Foundation, the Family Resource Center, Flow Health Care Foundation, Kiwanis International and the United Way. She also was elected to the Denton Independent School District board of trustees and served as board president. Additionally, a middle school in the Denton school district bears her name.
Dr. Myers received more than 30 awards related to education or civic participation over her lifetime, including the TWU Cornaro Award for Outstanding Senior Faculty and the Distinguished Service Award from the American Heart Association’s Texas affiliate. As a testament of her gregarious nature, she was named an honorary member of the American Airlines Association of Professional Flight Attendants in recognition of endearment following a motivational speech she gave for the association. She was a prolific speaker who gave more than 130 motivational speeches and conducted 245 workshops and seminars to a wide array of audiences across the United States.
Dr. Meyers held a bachelor’s degree in health, physical education, and recreation with a minor in government-sociology and a master’s degree in health, physical education, and recreation with a minor in education from Texas Woman’s University. She also held a Ph.D. in counseling psychology from the University of Michigan.