Harold Meyers Obituary

Harold Burton Meyers, a journalist and author, died October 6, 2023 in Williamsburg, VA. A son of George Lentton Meyers and Sallie Frances Key, he was born August 2, 1924, at Mesa, AZ. His parents, his two brothers, a daughter-in-law, Sheila Meyers, and a great-granddaughter, Lucy Boyle, preceded him in death, as did his wife of seventy years, Elizabeth Jean Ann Heltemes, who died in 2013. Survivors include four sons and a daughter-in-law. They are Terry L. Meyers, Williamsburg; John B. Meyers, Louisville, KY; Steven K. Meyers; Peter S. Meyers and his wife, Frances, Portland, OR. Also surviving are five grandchildren: Deborah A. Boyle (Tim), Mt. Pleasant, SC; Blake C. Meyers (Graziana Taramino), Clayton, MO; John Speed Meyers (Jing), Falls Church, VA; Austin Speed (Andrew Wolford), Louisville, KY; and Ellen Meyers of Lansing, MI; and four great-grand children, Maura Boyle, Mt Pleasant, SC; Camilla Meyers, Clayton, MO; Carter Meyers, Falls Church, VA; and Anne Parker Wolford, Louisville, KY. Burt Meyers's parents were teachers in the U. S. Indian Service, and he grew up on Indian reservations--Pima, Maricopa, Zuni, and Navajo--in Arizona and New Mexico. He also lived for two years at Tulalip, WA, where his father was principal of a boarding school for children from thirty-three tribes. Except for the two years in Washington, he was home-schooled until, at age 13, he entered Wasatch Academy, a Presbyterian boarding school in Mt. Pleasant, Utah. In World War II he served on Guam as a Navy Seabee. After the war he attended the University of Colorado on the G. I. Bill, graduating magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa in 1948. He worked on newspapers in Williston, ND, and Grand Junction, CO. He also taught briefly at Fort Lewis College and the University of Kansas. In 1957, he became a Time magazine correspondent in Chicago and then Washington, covering school desegregation in the South and the 1960 Presidential campaign. He later joined Fortune magazine and retired from it in 1987 as a story editor based in New York City. He published four novels set in the Southwest: Geronimo's Ponies (Council Oak Books, 1989), which won the 1988 National Novella Award; Reservations (University Press of Colorado, 1999); The Death at Awahi (Texas Tech University Press, 2007), which won a 2007 Best Book New Mexico Award; and A Hero of Brag (Smash-And-Grab Press, 2021, once in the pipeline at the University of Texas Press). Services will be private.