WVU Student Life announces 2017 Hall of Fame & Outstanding Achievement Award inductees

The West Virginia University Division of Student Life will announce the recipients of the 2017 Hall of Fame and Outstanding Achievement Awards at the induction ceremony at 5:30 p.m. on Monday (Oct. 2) at the WVU Mountainlair Ballrooms. 

The Student Life Outstanding Achievement Award will be presented to Bob Huggins.  The 2017 Student Life Hall of Fame Award will be presented to Charles Blue, Jr., Edna “Franny” King, and Alan R. Waters.

Student Life Outstanding Achievement Award
A proven success as a program builder, recruiter, and game strategist who has won 819 games as a collegiate head coach, Bob Huggins has directed his alma mater to 229 victories, including the 2010 NCAA Final Four, the 2010 Big East Championship, and nine postseason appearances during his 10 seasons in Morgantown. 

Huggins, a 1977 graduate of West Virginia University, was introduced as WVU’s 21st men’s basketball coach on April 6, 2007. In his first season at WVU, he took the Mountaineers to the NCAA Sweet 16, becoming the first Mountaineer coach to take a team that far in NCAA Tournament play in his first season. With 26 victories, he won more games in his first year than any other coach in WVU history. 

He ranks third in total victories among active Division I head coaches and has the eighth-most wins in college basketball history among Division I head coaches. During his coaching career, he has coached 18 NBA draft selections and 12 All-Americans, guided 66 all-conference selections in Division I, three of his players have earned All-Big East First Team honors, he has been named state coach of the year by the W.Va. State Sportswriters Association, and WVU has tied the school record for Big East victories with 11 wins. 

He was a three-year all-Ohio selection and the 1972 Ohio Player of the Year while playing for his father, Charles, at Indian Valley South High in Gnadenhutten, Ohio. He first attended Ohio University but transferred to WVU after his freshman season. Huggins was a three-year letterman for the Mountaineers under Gardner from 1975-77. As a senior and tri-captain, he helped the squad to an 18-11 overall record and a tie for the Eastern Collegiate Basketball League (ECBL) Western division title. In addition to helping the team earn its highest win total in nine seasons, he was named MVP after pacing the squad with 3.8 assists per game average. 

A two-time Academic All-American, Huggins graduated from West Virginia University magna cum laude in 1977 and received his master’s in health administration from WVU in 1978. He and his wife, June, have two daughters, Jenna Leigh and Jacqueline. 

In November 2012, Huggins signed an amended employment agreement, extending his employment to the year 2023. 

Student Life Hall of Fame
Charles C. Blue, Jr. was born and raised in Morgantown and attended Monongalia Black High School for one year prior to completing high school at Morgantown High School, where he lettered as a four-year sport athlete and received state honors in football and track during his tenure. Following duty in the U.S. Air Force, he earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from WVU.  

Prior to his employment at WVU, he worked at Sterling Tubular Products and The WV Newspaper Publishing Company in Morgantown. He served in various positions throughout his 35-year career at WVU. From 1971 to 1985, he worked in Department of Human Resources. In 1985, Blue became the liaison to the University President for Black Student Concerns, and because of his dedication to the position, he eventually joined the Division of Student Affairs to hold various positions with Minority Affairs and the Center for Black Culture and Research. Throughout his tenure in the Center, he assisted in developing and fostering a positive and supportive environment for African and African American students, faculty, and staff. He spent his final years, 1998 - 2006, at the Career Service Center, where he advised and counseled students in career development, placement, and individual consultation with decision-making. 

Throughout his years at WVU, he served on many boards and committees as well as being a member of various professional organizations. Because of his strong communication and interpersonal skills, especially with students, they looked to him for guidance, advice, and support as they matriculated through the university. Blue retired in 2006, but continues to advise young Greek men associated with the university and other organizations. 

Edna “Franny” King
Franny Mams King, a West Virginia native, was born in Huntington and raised in Elkins. At age six she fell in love with West Virginia University when her father took her to her first football game at Old Mountaineer Field. In 1972, King attended WVU on a 4-year academic scholarship. After graduating with honors and a bachelor’s degree in elementary education and minors in early childhood education and art education, she moved to Roanoke, Virginia, where she taught school and ran a catering business.  

In 1990, King returned to WVU to attend graduate school while simultaneously working as the night operations manager of the Mountainlair. During her tenure at the Mountainlair, she hired and trained more than a 100 student building supervisors, scheduled and managed thousands of students and events, started the College Bowl quiz competition, served on numerous Association on College Union International (ACUI) Regional conference committees, presented programs at Regional and International conferences, and instructed and certified Mountainlair staff in first aid and CPR training. She also stepped in as Dining Services catering manager during the 1996 football season. After nine years at the Mountainlair, she moved on to WVU Jackson’s Mill where she developed and hosted Elderhostel programs, assisted with grant proposals and staff development, and supervised the Conference Office. 

In 2001, she returned to WVU’s main campus and worked as a student program advisor at Arts & Entertainment. In 2008, she played a key role in starting the Student Employment Office as the off-campus jobs employment specialist. In addition to cultivating relationships with hundreds of regional employers to hire thousands of students for part-time and summer jobs, her favorite program was preparing students for the Workforce Development Federal Summer Internships in conjunction with the WVU Accessibility Services. 

King retired in 2014 and resides in Waynesburg, Pennsylvania, where she lives with her husband, Karl, and their pets. 

Alan R. Waters
Alan Waters, a 1975 graduate of the Reed College of Media, completed a 34-year career guiding students who produce WVU’s award-winning newspaper, The Daily Athenaeum. 

Prior to joining the DA in 1981, Waters worked in the advertising department at the Times-West Virginian newspaper for seven years. At the DA, he served four years as production manager and in subsequent years as assistant general manager, interim general manager, general manager and director. The growth of the paper’s annual budget and the size of the staff he supervised are the best indicators of the paper’s success. The early budget grew from $249,000 in 1981 to $563,000 in 1988 and broke into the million-dollar range at $1,300,000 in 2012. 

In 1994, with the help of the Friends of the Athenaeum alumni group, the DA moved into a new state-of-the-art facility at 284 Prospect Street. The paper’s staff tripled from about 35 in the early 1980s to more than 100 in 2015. Waters was a board member of the West Virginia Press Association, past president of the West Virginia Press Services and belongs to several national media groups including College Media Advisers, College Media Business and Advertising Managers, Society of Professional Journalists and Kappa Tau Alpha Journalism Honorary. 

Since his retirement in May 2013, he spends his time traveling with his wife and visiting with his grandchildren. He volunteers his time to the church and plans to spend the winter in Florida.  

Special student entertainment at the Awards Ceremony will be the piano prelude by Patricia Smith, and a musical performance by the 2016 Mountaineer Idol winner Elizabeth Keim and 2017 Mountaineer Idol participant Scott Link.

-WVU-

sw/09/26/17

CONTACT:  Sonja Wilson
Hall of Fame Event Coordinator
Sonja.wilson@mail.wvu.edu; 304.293.2702

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