{"id":48561,"date":"2021-02-15T17:22:13","date_gmt":"2021-02-16T00:22:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/10000-donation-will-help-teach-kids-to-swim\/"},"modified":"2021-02-16T00:22:13","modified_gmt":"2021-02-16T00:22:13","slug":"10000-donation-will-help-teach-kids-to-swim","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/10000-donation-will-help-teach-kids-to-swim\/","title":{"rendered":"$10,000 donation will help teach kids to swim"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Walt
Walt Dear, right, hands a check to Katie Korte with the Cristian Korte Memorial Swim Fund, center, with Mary Anne Nelson, wife of the late Bill Palmer, at the Durango Community Recreation Center. On Feb. 4, the city of Durango announced Dear\u2019s $10,000 donation to the fund in honor of Palmer, who coached the Durango Masters Swim Team.<\/span>Courtesy of the city of Durango<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

A longtime La Plata County resident donated $10,000 to help provide swim lessons for children in honor of Durango swim coach Bill Palmer, who died Dec. 30 at age 82.<\/p>\n

Walt Dear, 88, donated the money this month to the Cristian Korte Memorial Swim Fund, which provides financial assistance for youth swim lessons. Palmer had a 60-year career as a swim coach in Durango and New Jersey, where he trained multiple national team members, record-breakers and Olympians.<\/p>\n

He was a constant presence at the Durango Community Recreation Center, where he and Dear often interacted.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt makes me very sad that Mr. Palmer died the other day,\u201d Dear said. Dear, an avid swimmer since he was 8 years old, immediately recalled Palmer\u2019s booming voice while coaching the Durango Masters Swim Team.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was a very brilliant guy,\u201d Dear said.<\/p>\n

Dear called learning to swim as a child \u201cthe gift of a lifetime.\u201d His donation will help provide lessons for children through the memorial swim fund<\/a>, a program set up after Cristian Korte drowned at Navajo Lake while celebrating his 6th birthday in August 2014.<\/p>\n

The program seeks to provide financial assistance to families with low incomes to enroll their children in certified swim programs at locations around the Four Corners.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m absolutely thrilled about it. Swimming is a fantastic thing,\u201d Dear said. \u201cThey have infants learning how to swim. If you can learn how to swim as a child, it\u2019s the gift that goes on forever.\u201d<\/p>\n

Before moving to Durango, Palmer founded the Central Jersey Aquatic Club in 1961 and was head coach until 1988.<\/p>\n

During his tenure, the club produced 14 Olympic trial qualifiers, four of whom became Olympians. Six CJAC team members broke world records and six joined the national team, according to the CJAC website.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe recreation center was fortunate to have such a high-quality coach bring the Masters Swim program to the Durango community,\u201d said Kelli Jaycox, assistant recreation director. Palmer coached the program until his health failed in November 2019.<\/p>\n

Mary Anne Nelson, Palmer\u2019s wife, said her husband had what is known as the \u201cX factor\u201d in coaching.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith the Durango masters, if he said go, you had better go,\u201d Nelson said. \u201cHe pushed people to go farther and faster. He just expected it, and people did it.\u201d<\/p>\n

She kept a pile of letters from swimmers who said after they had Palmer as a coach, they felt they could accomplish anything.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe gave them such confidence that anything would be possible,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Nelson hoped the children who benefited from the memorial fund would be able to find the same motivation through swimming. The donation, she said, not only honored her late husband but also the swimmers he helped.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a very generous donation to a cause that Bill would have approved of,\u201d Nelson said.<\/p>\n

Palmer had passions for skiing, biking and triathlons, according to his obituary. He competed in almost 200 triathlons, including the Hawaii Ironman. He was known for saying exactly what he thought and had many close friends.<\/p>\n

While he was successful in business, he was likely better known as a coach.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe never got tired of it. He coached until he died,\u201d Nelson said. \u201cHow many people stick with their career and love it that much?\u201d<\/p>\n

smullane@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Resident\u2019s donation honors longtime swim coach<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":48562,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[408,255,1551,13],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-48561","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-charity","tag-death-and-dying","tag-durango-community-recreation-center","tag-frontpage-lead"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48561","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48561"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48561\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/48562"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48561"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48561"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48561"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=48561"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}