Chris Myers
By Martinique Davis
Chris Myers, principal architect of the local non partisan citizens group This Republic CAN, admits that until three years ago, he never would have imagined himself as the mouthpiece of a community-guided grassroots political movement. “I was unconscious,” he says simply of the days before September 12, 2002. On that date, President George W. Bush announced his intent to wage preemptive war on Iraq. “Revealing this plan on the day after the one-year anniversary of the attack, it seemed to me such a transparent manipulation of September eleventh grief and demanded a response,” he says.
Myers collaborated with once-local political activist Ernest Eich to organize a trip to San Francisco, in which more than 20 locals marched with 100,000 others in an anti-war demonstration on October 26, 2002. The “Telluride, Colorado, for Peace” banner they carried bore 750 signatures (it now boasts 4,000) and stood as the first icon of the burgeoning local movement that became “This Republic CAN.”
Since the steps these marchers took in the name of peace in San Francisco more than three years ago, This Republic CAN (TRC) has instigated a marathon of further strides intended to cultivate the group’s mission: To promote political participation through education and action. Myers explains, “The organization has evolved as a result of the community need to act on important issues. It has given people the courage to step forward and erase the feeling of being a lone voice.”
TRC played an instrumental role in educating Telluride voters on the community’s most recent emotion-inciting ballot question regarding condemnation of the Valley Floor. Hosting “neighborhood gatherings” in the weeks leading up to the election proved to be, in Myers’ words, “platforms from which information could be shared within the community.”
TRC is also the coordinating force behind Bringing it Home, known informally as “The Cross Project.” So far, TRC has helped project founder Skip Edwards, of Crawford, Colorado, organize the display of thousands of small white crosses—now approaching 2,500—in 13 cities across Colorado and Montana. Each cross represents an American soldier killed in the Iraq war and bears a photo, name, age, rank, hometown and cause of death. “The beauty of this project is that it begins to encourage dialogue, bringing communities face-to-face with the fellow American, human cost of war,” says Myers.
Throughout the realization of these projects, Myers has remained the centerpiece of TRC, an organization that he admits has taken on a life of its own. Myers explains, “I don’t quite know what’s been created, but it has been an organic, grassroots response to current issues.”
Myers himself could be described as an “organic” leader of Telluride’s homegrown citizen’s movement. The son of a CIA spy, Myers split his pre-collegiate years between Europe and Washington, D. C., attending high school mostly at St. Albans, a Washington prep school that has produced many government figures. Myers later attended and graduated from the College of William and Mary in Virginia.
Myers says that much of what has shaped him as a person stems from his earlier years. He shares, “Living abroad, and being exposed to other cultures as a child, was instrumental in my understanding of the world; that is, that human beings are basically all the same, with all the same hopes, fears and loves. Living in Washington, D. C., as the son of a government employee, I also know what the government is and what it pretends to be.”
Although the breeding of government service was there, Myers shied away from working in that arena with the exception of being elected to the Basalt, Colorado, town council. After living in the Roaring Fork Valley for nearly 15 years, Myers joined the long line of Aspen refugees when he moved to Telluride in 2000. Here, he opened the lighting design firm Enlighten.
Acting as the spokesperson of TRC has become less like a part-time job for Myers and more like an everyday occupation. In the days leading up to the Valley Floor condemnation election last winter, Myers says the election and TRC’s involvement in it even consumed his dreams. On a more typical schedule, Myers spends a minimum of one hour every day devoted to the organization, either sending emails, shaping upcoming community TRC gatherings, coordinating with volunteers and more. “But without the help of a select core of county neighbors who have supported This Republic CAN, I can honestly say we wouldn’t be doing what we’re doing,” Myers says. Approximately 500 people are currently on TRC’s email list, which comprises the group’s mostly regional membership. Existing primarily on donations and a spirited core group of volunteers, Myers foresees an active future for the organization. He says, “The purpose of This Republic CAN is to show that there is power in the collective voice. Anger without action breeds rage. I hope that with the actions of this group, we can become the glue that connects people. Citizens of this republic need to participate on some level—whatever level they can—because if we don’t participate, then we surrender our democracy.”
