Former Artesia High School standout athlete and current Artesia coach Heather Harrison has been through many tough situations.
But one situation was almost life threatening.
One night, Harrison and a couple of friends traveled to Roswell for a movie. After the movie, they stopped at the Town & Country convenience store on the south side of town to get a beverage for the ride home.
It was about 12 a.m., and the store was empty, except for the store clerk, and Harrison and her two friends.
Harrison and her friends were talking to the clerk for about 10 minutes when a man with a bandanna on his face walked into the store.
The masked man pulled a gun on the clerk and demanded money and alcohol. Harrison’s friends quietly backed away to the back bathrooms, leaving Harrison by herself.
“I didn’t see them back away,” she said. “I turned around and noticed that they were halfway to the bathrooms, and I was like, ‘what am I going to do?’”
While the clerk was opening the register, the masked man fired one shot into the air.
That was when Harrison decided it was time to join her friends in the bathroom.
She quickly started to back away to the bathroom, facing the masked man. By the time she got to the end of the aisle, the man noticed she was sneaking away.
He chased after her and shot at her. Harrison jumped into the bathroom and slammed the door shut. Her two other friends were already in there.
“All I could think about was how high my blood pressure was, because my heart was racing so fast,” said Harrison.
The masked man shot at the bathroom door a couple of times, but then went back to the front of the store, and started to shoot at the glass containers of alcohol behind the cash registers.
Harrison called 911 from a cell phone while in the bathroom. Within minutes, Roswell Police Department officers were at the scene. But the masked man had already fled.
There were no injuries to Harrison or her friends. The store clerk was left without a scratch as well.
“I am really cautious about going into a convenience store now,” says Harrison. “That’s as close to death as I have ever been in my life.”
Harrison does live a normal life, though.
The daughter of Bob and Verna Harrison, she graduated from Artesia High School in 1992.
She attended Wayland Baptist University, and played volleyball.
Harrison still holds two collegiate records at the school. They are most digs in a game (33), and most serves in a game (7).
She came back to Artesia in 1996 to be a coach and P.E. teacher at Hermosa Elementary School.
She started out as the ninth grade orange volleyball, basketball, and freshman softball team coach.
She moved up to assistant varsity basketball coach two years ago, and JV “B” volleyball coach. She is also the assistant varsity softball coach.
When asked if she had goals to one day be a varsity head coach, her response was somewhat surprising.
“I think I want to stick with being an assistant. I really enjoy working with the kids, but I like having help as well,” she said.
Harrison also loves her job as P.E. teacher at Hermosa Elementary.
“When kids are that young, they still like you,” she stated. “I wouldn’t trade my job for anything.”
Harrison has two sisters, Micah, and Robbie. Micah is teaching at Randall High School in Canyon, Texas, and Robbie is finishing up her masters degree at West Texas A & M.
Harrison plans to stay in Artesia for a while. She enjoys the community and the way it supports its student athletes.
She is just another example of the great coaches in the city of Artesia.