Diverse past aids MPA’s head Durost relies on experience at local, state and national levels

AUGUSTA – Dick Durost has seen Maine’s interscholastic education and sports worlds from nearly every angle.

Growing up in Mars Hill during the mid-1960s, the current Maine Principals’ Association executive director admittedly “was not much of a high school athlete” at the former Aroostook Central Institute. But when he grew from 5-foot-7 to 6-3 between his junior and senior years, that changed.

After graduating from ACI, he went to what is now the University of Maine-Presque Isle, where he played basketball before graduating in 1971.

“I tell people I scored seven points in my varsity career in high school and just under 1,000 points at UMPI,” said Durost, now 54.

Durost then began a career in education, spending 14 years as a high school math and physics teacher, as well as coaching varsity basketball for six years and varsity baseball for two years at Penobscot Valley High School in Howland.

He also became a sports official, and was active in basketball, soccer, baseball and softball.

Gradually Durost’s educational interests turned to administration. He left PVHS in the mid-80s to become principal at Easton High, where he spent four years before leaving for Presque Isle High to serve for two years as assistant principal and five years as principal.

He eventually returned to Easton and spent five years as superintendent of schools and elementary-level principal before replacing the retired Richard Tyler as MPA executive director on April 1, 2001.

Before taking the MPA post, he already had been heavily involved in the association’s committee structure, including a term as president in 1995-96.

Durost’s interest in the executive director’s job also was fueled by his administrative experience at the national level. During the early 1990s he served on a national principals’ committee for three years, enabling him to attend four meetings a year in Washington, D.C., to work on national issues.

In 1996, he was named to the 12-member board of directors of the National Federation of State High Schools Association – the high school equivalent of the NCAA. He served on that board until 2000, and during the final year was the association’s national president.

“Maine gets the opportunity to put a school administrator on their board of directors once every 64 years, and the timing was right,” said Durost.

“Then the timing was such that a little less than a year later, Dick Tyler retired from the MPA, and because of all the work I had done with the association and at the national level I certainly had a real interest and was fortunate enough to be selected.”