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School officials remembered on crash anniversary

Two Montezuma County school superintendents were among four men killed 50 years ago Thursday when their light plane went down in the San Juan Mountains near the summit of Wolf Creek Pass.

Cyril K. Conway, 38, the pilot and superintendent of Mancos schools, and his counterpart in Dolores, Henry M. McMillan, 38, were returning from a State Board of Education meeting in Denver. Also killed were Kenneth Wallace, 55, a member of the Mancos school board, and Richard Hudgins, no age available, business manager in the Cortez school system.

Elmo McKee, superintendent in Durango School District 9-R, was scheduled to travel with the group, but a change of plans kept him in Durango.

McMillan taught school in Pagosa Springs and was superintendent of schools in Silverton for seven years before taking the top job in Dolores.

The educators apparently attended the meeting in Denver out of interest in establishing a vocational school in Montezuma County.

An account of the accident in The Durango Herald on Nov. 1, 1964, said the plane Conway was piloting was a single-engine Rooney Super 21. It departed the Jefferson County Airport at 6:50 a.m. bound for Cortez.

The weather was cloudy and turbulent with blowing sleet. Local fliers said the time between takeoff and the crash at 8:40 a.m. indicated Conway had serious problems.

Witnesses said the plane appeared to lack power to clear the pass and was turning back. The left wing struck a tree and fell into Alberta Park near the top of the pass.

The plane hit the ground in a grassy open space and slid into a stand of trees where it was ripped to shreds.

daler@durangoherald.com



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