2007 Smithsonian Traveling Exhibit:
“Portraits of Alumni Achievement”

Elia Myers-Juárez ‘73

“My mother is my hero. She always inculcated that education was
the key to success and that it was the best gift because
it would last a lifetime, define my life and make me who I am.”

Elia Myers-Juárez ‘73, BSEED
Director
Federal & State Compensatory
Programs United I.S.D.

Elia Myers-Juárez will always be grateful to her parents for the most wonderful gift they could give her, an education. One wonders if it is coincidence that watching her parents sacrifice and save to send her to college has not influenced her career aspirations. Now as the Director of Federal and State Compensatory Programs for the United Independent School District, she works in a department whose mission is to provide the financial resources and guidance to campuses that will in turn provide each of their students the essential academic skills needed to achieve success.

Myers-Juárez tells how her parents had only a third and fourth grade education, but longed for their daughter to go to college. A degree would be something that no one could ever take from her and would enable her to be successful no matter what happened in her life. Myers- Juárez has dedicated 33 years of her life to education and could not imagine doing anything different.