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History of CMSD
- Lloyd and Dorothy Shaw
- written by Richard Marold
- For students attending Cheyenne Mountain School between the years 1916 and 1951, the school did not have a leader....it had a Moses.
- Lloyd Shaw - educator, scholar, writer, square-dance caller, athlete, naturalist, playwright - emerged as an educator with imaginative ideas combined with a bursting love of life. He considered his role as school principal to be that of a principle teacher.
- He taught biology, Shakespeare and Colorado history. Endowed with a rich, baritone voice he read Dicken's Christmas Carol each December; made his play The Littlest Wiseman the school's gift to the community; introduced thousands to the rhythms of western Square Dancing; directed drama productions with gust; lectured on a wide variety of subjects in a style which would make Churchill proud; and explained classical music and opera with the abandon of Luciano Pavarotti.
- Throughout his 35 years at Cheyenne Mountain School, Lloyd Shaw benefited from the stability and wisdom of his exceptional wife, Dorothy. She was an often-published writer and poet, and she instilled a love of learning which was contagious. Dorothy developed the school library while quietly and constantly pushing students to a higher literary and scholarly level.
- This unique husband-wife tandem so inspired the students and faculty of the small school along Cheyenne Creek that the great journalist Ernie Pyle wrote, "Cheyenne is the best public school in the United States."
- In the fall of 1958, a few months after Lloyd died, Dorothy wrote the following poetic words about this region and her beloved husband while on a trip home from Denver:
- "This is the season of great sunsets. All that has been lost from the dreaming earth is poured and lifted into the sky in a great golden libation. I come home at sunset. Our peak is ahead, and the noble crags of Cheyenne Mountain; and the rosy clouds whirl up from the east in great banners and are flung across the summits, where wind-blown snow is caught and colored into rainbows. And once again the unbearable triumph of that soaring spirit - so near, so tender, so unattainable. 'How does it feel,' I ask him, 'to swoop over the mountain at sunset?"
- On October 1, 2004 as we begin our Cheyenne Mountain School Hall of Fame with the induction of Lloyd and Dorothy Shaw. We are fortunate to begin the Hall of Fame with two people who match our mountains.
- Lloyd Shaw spent 35 years (1916 - 1951) as superintendent, principal, and teacher for Cheyenne Schools.