Gary Childress, a 1974 Middle Park High School graduate, was inducted into the Colorado High School Coaches Association Hall of Fame on Dec. 7 after retiring from a 41-year career as a head high school basketball coach.

“I’m tremendously honored to be selected. I was able to do something that I loved for a long time,” Childress wrote in an email to Sky-Hi News. “Coaching was all I ever wanted to do.”

Childress was Grandview High School’s first boys’ basketball coach, beginning in 1998. He led the program for 16 years. During that tenure, the Wolves made three trips to the final four of the state’s largest classification. He also led basketball programs at Vista Ridge and Cherokee Trail high schools.

Childress was born and raised in Granby, where he participated in football, basketball and track all four years of high school. His parents, Sam and Betty Childress, owned and operated Gambles store from the 1960s to the 1990s.