2017 Homecoming Honorees 12
ENMU Foundation Awards Business of the Year: Big Valley Automotive, Inc. ENMU Athletics corporate sponsor Big Valley Automotive, Inc. has generously supported the University and ENMU Athletics for the past decade. They are one of only two Anchor Board sponsors for Greyhound Club, donating thousands of dollars in monetary and trade gifts per year. In trade, the company loans multiple cars for ENMU coaches to use when recruiting and traveling to out-of-town games. As coowners of Big Valley — one of the 10 largest private employers in Roosevelt County — ENMU alumnus Randy Van Leuven (BBA 93) and Wade Rutter (attended) value the importance of keeping money local. In addition to their support of ENMU, Big Valley actively fundraises to help the local economy. In the last 18 months alone, they have raised $24,000 for local schools and Roosevelt County Crime Stoppers. This past August they brought the community together for their Drive4UrSchool event, where the company donated $20 per test drive toward Portales High School Athletics.
Philanthropist of the Year: Healy Foundation A strong supporter of education and the arts, Healy Foundation – spearheaded by Ed and Trudy Healy of Taos, New Mexico – has contributed generously to ENMU’s KENW-TV since 2008. They are a main financial backer for the interview series “Report from Santa Fe,” and they also helped fund the KENW-produced documentary “Ol’ Max Evans – The First Thousand Years,” which premiered at the Santa Fe Independent Film Festival in October. Because of their generosity, KENW was able to upgrade production equipment, utilize a more attractive set, and provide an enhanced learning experience for ENMU students who work in the studio to get valuable, hands-on training. For the 25 years they have been established, the Healy Foundation mainly supports the state’s land and water issues. In addition to their donations to ENMU, the foundation (previously named the Martha Ann Healy Family Foundation) has funded programs to aid the farming industry at NMSU, to UNM for land and water issues, and to the New Mexico Bureau of Geology and Mineral Resources, a division of New Mexico Tech, for an aquifer mapping and monitoring project.
Volunteer of the Year: Billy K. Gaedke Jr. For the past 17 years, Billy K. Gaedke, Jr. (MED 89, BS 88) has loyally agreed to review the hundreds of College of Education and Technology (CET) scholarship applications that come through the ENMU Foundation office – an important and tedious task. Even though he officially retired from ENMU in 2006 after working 16 years as an instructor of education foundations, he remains actively involved and does not take his position as the chair of the CET Scholarship Committee lightly. In recent years he expanded his role even further to also review the ENMU Foundation general scholarships. Since joining ENMU’s faculty in 1990, Mr. Gaedke has mentored more than 900 prospective teachers and has served on the Alumni Association Board of Directors and three terms on the Council of Professors Emeriti (COPE) Board of Directors. In 2002, ENMU honored him with the Chester Haughawaut Exemplary Human Relations Award, and in 2006 he was named Eastern’s Collegiate FFA Teacher of the Year. He received Distinguished Emeritus Faculty status in 2014. Mr. Gaedke may be most well-known, however, as the “voice” of the Clovis Wildcats, since he has been volunteering his time as the announcer at their games for the past 38 years.
Green & Silver | December 2017
