Byron ’55 and Phyllis ’55 Myers have spent a lifetime creating a legacy of music, devoting almost all of their adult lives to the New Generation Singers in St. Joseph, Missouri.
Byron and Phyllis Myers
Byron founded the group in 1970 and served as musical director until 1998, and Phyllis has helped with the fundraising and bookkeeping since it began. The couple estimates about 6,000 youth have been a part of the group over the past 47 years, and Byron and Phyllis can proudly name many, many New Generation Singers alumni in successful careers today.
The group, housed at Ashland United Methodist Church, is for youth in their second semester of eighth-grade through college.
The first year, there were 27 members and they spent a week performing in Texas. Last summer, the group of 88 traveled to eight states over 15 days.
Byron and Phyllis continue to help plan the Singers’ annual tours and travel with the group. Byron has been on every tour, and Phyllis has only missed one.
“Every year, they ask, ‘Are you going this year?’” Phyllis said. “And we say, of course.”
“It’s a Christian group. There’s a very strong bond that grows among the singers and they make lifelong friends,” she said.
Byron and Phyllis met in choir at Central High School and dated throughout their Junior College days. The two were in musicals together, and there’s even a photo in the 1955 yearbook of Byron singing a love song to Phyllis in an operetta. “We did a lot together, it was fun,” Phyllis said.
In fact, Byron proposed at the Junior College on the evening of their induction into Delta Psi Omega, a theatre honor society. Longtime music professor Roberta Riemer held the ring for him during the ceremony.
The couple married in 1956 and have two children, five grandchildren (one is currently a student at Missouri Western) and four great grandchildren.
Byron’s career included teaching music at Central High School, serving as an associate minister (he was ordained as a minister of the Christian Church), and running two businesses, including a music store. Phyllis was a member and Byron director of the local Sweet Adelines for 40 years, and the group competed successfully for many years. Additionally, Byron traveled all over the country teaching barbershop quartet directors as part of the Barbershop Harmony Society and was instrumental in bringing the society’s Harmony University to Missouri Western, where the society held their conference for more than 35 years.
Phyllis was named Outstanding Young Woman of the Year in 1967 and Byron Outstanding Young Educator of the Year in 1968 by the St. Joseph Junior Chamber of Commerce. Additionally, Byron was awarded the Alumni Association’s Distinguished Alumni Award in 1990.
He has also served as president of the St. Joseph Symphony Board and is president of the Allied Arts Council this year.
And throughout all their music-laden years, Byron and Phyllis continued to be avid supporters of Missouri Western. When the new campus was being built in the late 1960s Byron’s dad was superintendent for the construction of Popplewell Hall (then A Building). He called them to come out and watch the walls going up with a new type of construction. “He told us, ‘You need to come out, history is being made,’” Byron said.
Byron and Phyllis regularly attend Missouri Western’s musical and theatre performances. Phyllis is a member of the Alumni Association Board of Directors, serving as the Forever Griffons committee chair. Their daughter-in-law, Carol, has directed musical theatre at Missouri Western, and their grandson was in “The Wedding Singer” in the spring of 2017.
“We try to go to everything we can to be supportive,” Byron said.
And, of course, they said they always encourage youth in the New Generation Singers to consider Missouri Western, because the Myers are faithful, proud and true to the black and gold.