Sequim’s own superfan has passed.

Myron Teterud, a decades-long supporter of community activities — and in particular local sports — died on April 29, having spent much of the past two years as a resident at Sequim Health & Rehabilitation.

Teterud, who turned 81 in November, suffered a stroke in early 2019.

His passion for all things Sequim, from the Irrigation Festival to Sequim High School football and basketball games, left an indelible memory on locals that the Sequim Alumni Association in the fall of 2020 began asking the Sequim School District to consider naming the SHS sports field after Teterud (see sidebar).

“I don’t think that Sequim schools will know another Myron,” alumni association member Phyllis Meyer said.

Born Nov. 27, 1939, Teterud came to Sequim in May of 1951 and began attending Sequim Elementary School in a building that stood on property between Fir and Alder streets.

In a 2015 interview with the Sequim Gazette, he detailed his first thoughts of Sequim: “Dead — nothing to do.” That initial impression didn’t last, however. In his later school years, Teterud became manager for boys basketball and football squads, the only sports teams Sequim High had at the time. His responsibilities for the teams? “Anything you can name,” he recalled.

Bob Bilow, whose family moved to the Sequim area in his junior year, met Myron while competing with SHS football, baseball, basketball and track teams.

“Myron was an amazing fan of all the teams in Sequim,” Bilow recalled at a Sequim School Board meeting Monday night. “

“He was a one man wrecking ball supporting sports in Sequim.”

Myron Teterud, a longtime Sequim High sports fan, enjoys some gifts from Sequim Alumni Association members and friends on Sept. 8. Sequim Gazette photo by Michael Dashiell

Teterud briefly left the Olympic Peninsula in 1960 to live in Tacoma and worked at Goodwill, but he still kept an eye on Sequim, watching the Wolves play an occasional non-league or playoff game. He soon returned to Sequim, working at several restaurants like the Red Ranch Inn and Gwennie’s.

For decades Teterud would be decked out in Sequim High purple in gold, walking the sidelines or sitting up in the stands at SHS football and basketball games, softball and baseball games, track meets and wrestling matches alike.

He also had a place on the SHS bus for away games.

Bob Clark, a 1947 Sequim High graduate, said Myron was an indelible part of SHS athletics.

“Whenever I went to a game — basketball, football, you name it — Myron was there,” Clark recalled Monday. “I saw him a lot … When I’d walk through the door, Myron would come to tell me about the last game he’d seen and the one coming up.”

In the 2015 interview, Teterud said his favorite sports were football and baseball. “It’s (a) fun and good time,” he said then. “It gets rowdy.”

Teterud was a regular figure at community events as well, enjoying civic celebrations along with church and grange events. Meyer, who served as Sequim Irrigation Festival royalty mom for several years, recalled taking Teterud along with the festival crew for out-of-town parades.

“He was always going to be at almost all community events and high school sporting events, standing on the sidelines, cheering,” said Jim Stoffer, a community volunteer and school board director.

“It was his one great passion; he knew he could contribute (that way).”

Before a stroke a couple of years ago slowed the Sequim uber-fan, Teterud made it a habit of visiting numerous local shops and groups to chat with friends and make new ones.

“He’d always say, ‘How are you?’ and greet community (members). He excelled at that,” Stoffer said. “You’d think he never had a bad day in his life.”

Alumni association advocates for field name change

Sequim Alumni Association members are advocating to see the Sequim School District name its athletic field in honor of Myron Teterud, longtime Sequim High sports fanatic.

Teterud, who rooted on SHS athletics for the past six decades, died on April 30.

Bob Bilow, Phyllis Meyer and Bob Clark each advocated for the naming of the athletic field to Sequim School Board directors at the Monday, May 3 board meeting. Additionally, board president Brandino Gibson read a number of public comments submitted to the board in support of the association’s effort.

“I’ve known Myron almost all of his life; I can truthfully say there was no better fan of SHS athletics than Myron Teterud,” Clark told board directors.

“He truthfully became a mascot of any athletic team,” Clark said.

School board directors didn’t commit to renaming of the field, but most directors voiced support of either creating a new policy or adjusting current policy to address naming/renaming of school facilities.

“I don’t think any of us have any doubt of the impact Myron had on students and the school and this community,” board president Brandino Gibson said Monday. “We have to be careful of setting a precedence, of a board deciding something (outside of a policy).”

Board director Brian Kuh said the association’s comments were compelling.

“Their testimony … I was moved to tears, just absolutely blown away,” Kuh said. “From what I understand … this is exactly why we do these sort of things. They make movies about people like Myron.”

Myron Tetrud waves hello at the 2017 Sequim irrigation Festival Grand Parade. Sequim Gazette file photo by Matthew Nash

Association member Bob Clark said the group will host an all-class reunion in August 2022, and that would be an “ideal” time for a field naming ceremony, as many alumni attending the reunion would have known Myron.

Association members began advocating for the name change in 2020 but health restrictions relating to the coronavirus pandemic have postponed all non-essential school district business to whenever boards can host in-person meetings.

Phyllis Meyer — a Sequim High graduate (Class of 1969) and alumni association member — brought up the idea of honoring Myron at an association meeting in February 2020.

“He’s not a close friend of mine … (but) I’ve had a lot of kids go through Sequim High, so I’ve seen Myron a lot,” Meyer said in a September 2020 interview. “I (told association members), ‘We should do something for Myron’; It just came to my head. Before the words were even out of my mouth, heads were nodding and (saying) ‘yes, yes, yes.’”

The vote, Meyer said, was unanimous.

“Our motto is, ‘If you don’t know Myron, you don’t know Sequim’,” she said.

Bilow, who attended Sequim High and met Teterud when Bilow’s family moved to Sequim in 1959, said something similar to Sequim Little League’s naming of a field to honor Don Knapp would be appropriate.

“(Myron) has done so much for this school,” Bilow said.

Support for Teterud has come in bundles, Meyer said in September, with more than a hundred emails backing the drive to honor Sequim’s super fan.

“Myron will be remembered by many but he should never be forgotten,” Meyer said at Monday’s board meeting.

Dave Ditlefsen, Sequim High School athletic director, said in September 2020 that it might be more appropriate to post plaques at the stadium and inside the gymnasium rather than renaming the stadium; school athletic building names are typically reserved for Hall of Fame coaches and the like, he said.

“Myron is certainly someone we want to recognize for his support for teams for 50-plus years,” Ditlefsen said.

“We understand the love he has for Wolves athletics (and) our teams have always included him as a member of our family,” he said. “There’s definitely a place for him to be recognized.”

Sequim High has one facility bearing a name: The Rick Kaps Gymnasium that hosts boys and girls basketball games as well as volleyball and wrestling matches and physical education classes. Kaps, who coached SHS and Goldendale boys varsity basketball teams to the tune of a 255-148 record and whose 1988 Sequim team finished second in the class AAA state tourney, died of cancer in 1998 at age 55.