Nederland Middle-Senior High School choir and theater director Elizabeth Evans has lived in Colorado almost her entire life. Her parents met in 1949 at The Sink, located on The Hill near CU Boulder. Evans was born in Denver in 1963. She was raised in Boulder and has lived in Boulder for most of her life.

Evans went to elementary school at Columbine and Foothills Elementary Schools, middle school at Centennial, high school at Boulder High, and college at CU Boulder. She graduated from CU Boulder in May of 1985 with a double major in Music Education and Flute Performance and a minor in Voice and Piano. She would go back to CU in 2013 to get her Master’s in Music Education with a specialization in Choral and Instrumental Conducting.

Before that, though, Evans got a job working at Nederland in September of 1985, a few weeks into the school year. Evans believes she learned a strong sense of discipline and dedication during her time studying music at CU Boulder.

Evans had been trying to find a job in Boulder Valley when she received a call from her old band director, who told her that there was a job offering in Nederland. After going for an interview and getting the job, she worked at Ned for a couple of years before moving to California to work as a substitute teacher.

After working in California for a year and a half, she realized she missed Colorado and did not particularly care for the environment of California or the educational opportunities available for her first-born son, Chris. Because of this, she called the principal in Nederland at the time to ask if she could get her job back at the school. The principal accepted her offer, and Evans started working there again in 1988.

Before Nederland, Evans had never even been in a choir before, let alone taught one. Her wheelhouse was band, and when she got the teaching job at Nederland, she started teaching a three person band. These students played an oboe, a snare drum, and a violin.

Her job would expand to teaching various different subjects -- Music Theory and Appreciation, a middle and high school choir, Introduction to Theater, Discussion and Debate, and even Physical Education -- before she was able to cement her position as a music director.

In the early 1990s, Evans introduced the Loquations as a lunchtime acapella choir. Around 2000, when she started teaching Introduction to Theater, she received her English certification. She started teaching theater after school because at the time, the English teachers were supposed to teach theater and she was the only teacher who was enthusiastic about taking on the challenge.

Despite living in Colorado, Evans openly admits to not liking the snow that much. Because of this, she is not a skier or a snowboarder. Instead, she loves doing summer-centered activities. She especially loves gardening. Evans finds digging in the soil and spending time in the sun especially enjoyable.

Evans also enjoys hiking, walking her dog, solving crossword puzzles, going to the theater whenever she has the opportunity, and taking tours at the notoriously haunted Stanley Hotel with her daughter Ashleigh. She loves the constant sunny weather here in Colorado, citing the “dreary and cloudy” weather in her parents’ home state of Illinois as a primary reason for moving to Colorado.

Evans and her husband Brent met in the Boulder High School band and married in June 1985. They have three kids -- Chris, born in California, Ashleigh, born in Boulder, and her second son Brandon, also born in Boulder. Ashleigh currently lives in Longmont. Chris still lives in Boulder and works as a production manager for Macky Auditorium at CU Boulder. Brandon currently lives in Connecticut.

Evans believes that teaching music and theater is more than just learning lines and practicing notes. It also teaches important life skills like communication and teamwork.

She looks forward to the time when everyone can watch live theater and concerts again without masks and where the worry of catching a potentially deadly illness in a crowded place can completely disappear. She believes she has learned a lot more patience during this time, to embrace where she is now, and to appreciate life in the moment.

She feels incredibly lucky to be able to teach in a community that focuses so much of their attention on the arts and hopes that Nederland will continue to be as supportive of the arts as they are now.

Be sure to stop by the Nederland Middle-Senior High School auditorium on Tuesday, December 7, 2021, at 7 p.m. for the Winter 2021 band and orchestra concert and on Thursday, December 9, 2021, at 7 p.m. for the Winter 2021 choir concert.