Former Kentucky High School Athletic Association Commissioner and University of Kentucky alumna Brigid DeVries will be honored with the 2016 Sue Feamster Trailblazer Award during Sunday’s UK women’s basketball game in Memorial Coliseum.

The award, given to those who have provided exceptional leadership and paved the way for others to succeed, will be presented by Feamster, a pioneering women’s basketball coach as well as a national leader on the NCAA steering committee, which helped pave the way for women to play in the NCAA.

DeVries, the first female commissioner of the Kentucky High School Athletic Association, will receive the award when UK plays Arkansas at 3 p.m.

"Brigid has been a quiet but highly effective leader in women’s sports since our days together at UK,” Feamster said. “Whether she was helping develop the Bluegrass State Games, UK swimming and diving teams or her pioneering effort at the KHSAA, where she established a ground breaking Title IX review of every high school in Kentucky, which resulted in new facilities, better coaches and more money being allocated to girls. She has always been progressive and her work and innovation at every level has been truly amazing. She is a true trailblazer at the national and state level.”

In 2002, DeVries was selected as the first female commissioner of the KHSAA until she retired in 2010. At the time she was named commissioner, DeVries was one of three female state association commissioners/executive directors in the nation, joining New York and California. During her time as commissioner, DeVries directed the KHSAA’s Title IX program and served on the National Federation of State High School Associations Board of Directors.

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