Success Stories
Career
Path Leads to Dental Assisting, Real Estate and Statewide Leadership for
this Lifelong Learner
by Gloria Biersdorff
Sherry
Duerst-Higgins has quietly, effectively championed public education for
more than 20 years. She is 2003 president of the Oregon School Board Association
and an alumnus of Lane Community College.
Duerst-Higgins describes herself as "more of a doer, a hands-on" person who prefers to listen rather than talk. The 56-year-old is spurred by a "passion for kids" and the deep conviction that service to community is one of the wisest investments a person can make.
The oldest of seven children raised on a farm in Lorane, as a teen Duerst-Higgins tended to her siblings' diapers and braids before the school bus whisked the older ones away to Crow High School. Her pragmatic, "hands-on" approach to life made Lane a natural choice for continuing her education.
In 1965 Duerst-Higgins enrolled in the college's first Dental Assistant program, funded by a state grant that "paid for everything," even mileage to and from her class in the old Eugene Technical-Vocational School at 200 N. Monroe St. in Eugene. "There was such a need for dental assistants. The school was very good and we had an exciting instructor," she says.
After working five years as a dental receptionist in Cottage Grove, Duerst-Higgins focused on raising her three children and volunteering for various civic and school organizations. When the time came for her daughter Susan to choose a path after high school, Lane once again provided an excellent answer. Susan enrolled in Lane's Medical Technology program and subsequently took a job with Lane County in office management. "My granddaughter, Nicole, will go to Lane too," Duerst-Higgins predicts. "Lane does some great two-year courses. They offer wonderful choices for kids--and adults."
Duerst-Higgins
returned to Lane in 1995 to study real estate from licensed broker Robert
Nelson. "He was very, very good," she says, stressing that the
negotiating and marketing skills she learned at Lane have proven invaluable
to her as she guides OSBA.
OSBA is a non-profit organization serving Oregon's more than 1,400 school
board and community college board members, including those of LCC.
Besides leading OSBA, Duerst-Higgins works 50 to 70 hours per week for
Hemenway Real Estate in Cottage Grove as the area's top producer. The
Oregon Association of Realtors named her Realtor of the Year in 1999 and
2000.
Other distinctions, like the 2001 Cottage Grove Chamber Partnership Award and the 1990 Chamber Distinguished Service Award, allude to the staggering breadth of Duerst-Higgins' civic involvement She's been president of the Cottage Grove Community Foundation board and a board member of the Lane Educational Service District, Cottage Grove Community Sharing, Community Chest, Rotary International ... the list goes on.
Krista Parent, South Lane School District superintendent, has known Duerst-Higgins for 18 years. "Beyond all those offices and titles," she says, "Sherry is the person you can go to with any kind of need in the community. Either she handles it, or finds someone."
Tim Flowerday, executive director of the Cottage Grove Chamber of Commerce, met Duerst-Higgins three years ago when she was Chamber president and praises her skills in diplomacy. "She believes in partnerships, works very hard in them, is an effective partnership builder," he says. "She's a perceived leader in the community."
"I believe
you need to give back to your community," Duerst-Higgins asserts.
"The life-long friends I've made, the pleasure I get out of giving,
it's selfish. You get back so much more than you ever give."
For more information about classes and programs at Lane, go to 2011sitearchive.lanecc.edu
.
