Ryan has been teaching U.S. and World History at Payson High School since 2022. He received his bachelor’s degree in History from Oklahoma Christian University in 1995 and went on to earn a Juris Doctorate from the University of Arizona in 1998. Ryan was admitted to the Arizona State Bar in 1999 and served as a criminal prosecutor for the Pima County Attorney’s Office through 2009. He then managed a private law practice until 2019, when he transitioned out of full-time attorney work and moved to Payson to serve as a minister for The Way, a Church of Christ. Ryan has always found great joy in teaching, so he began substituting for PHS and Rim Country Middle School in 2020. This eventually led him to become a full-time History teacher at PHS at the beginning of the 2022-23 school year. Ryan views history as the story of human achievement over time rather than just a random collection of facts and dates. He believes that students are much more likely to understand and enjoy history once they realize that they are just as much a part of that story as the most famous names in any textbook.
“We are the music makers. And we are the dreamers of dreams.” -Arthur O’Shaughnessy, Ode