A three-time All-American pole vaulter, a league Player of the Year and first-team All-American, a two-time National Soccer Player of the Year, and a dedicated servant to covering college athletics, have been elected for induction to the Great Lakes Valley Conference Hall of Fame, it was announced by the Conference office Thursday.
The GLVC’s Class of 2018 inductees include University of Indianapolis women’s basketball and volleyball standout Courtney (Sands) Gault, Missouri S&T multi-event specialist Peter Hollenbeck, Northern Kentucky University soccer star Steven Beattie, and longtime Kentucky Wesleyan College sports information director (SID) Roy Pickerill.
The GLVC Hall of Fame Class of 2018 will be honored at the Enterprise/GLVC Spring Awards Banquet at the Drury Plaza Hotel in St. Louis on Tuesday, May 22.
Roy Pickerill’s service at Kentucky Wesleyan has spanned 46 years, 29 of which were as the Panthers’ sports information director. His 35 years in the GLVC is one of the longest tenures for an administrator in league history. He was the Conference’s second SID from 1980-83 and was recognized in 2014 as the GLVC Thomas Kearns Service Award recipient. Pickerill retired from his campus SID post on Dec. 31, 2016, and has since worked for KWC as sports information director emeritus and special assistant for college relations. In addition to his service with the GLVC, Pickerill served as the first president of the Division II Sports Information Directors Association from 2006-09. He spent 15 years as Assistant Director and is now in his 10th season as the Director of Media Services for the NCAA Division II Elite Eight Men’s Basketball Championship. The GLVC’s top honor is not the first to come Pickerill’s way. On campus, his alma mater accorded him the Distinguished Alumni Service Award in 1994, the highest honor for an alumnus. He was then inducted into the Kentucky Wesleyan College Alumni Hall of Fame in 2012, and later in its Athletic Hall of Fame in May 2015. The College Sports Information Directors of America inducted him into its Hall of Fame in 1999. Pickerill also received the prestigious CoSIDA Warren Berg Award, presented to a college division member who has made outstanding contributions to the field of sports information, in 1998. CoSIDA presented him with their Lifetime Achievement Award in June 2017.
The 2018 GLVC Hall of Fame Class will be the 17th class to be inducted since the establishment of the honor in 2002. With the inclusion of the Class of 2018 in May, the GLVC Hall of Fame membership will expand to 76 former administrators, coaches, and student-athletes.