More than 100 alumni and friends gathered in December 2022 for a Virginia Tech basketball game in Blacksburg. It wasn’t all about sports. Most fans in the crowd were old friends and classmates of VT head men’s basketball coach and Emory & Henry alumnus Mike Young, ’86.
Posted July 06, 2023
Mike took time after the game to speak to everyone who attended.
This tradition started years ago when Mike was at Wofford University. Mike’s friend Gary Jones, ’83, organized an event called “Waspers for Wofford”; when Mike took the head job at Tech, Gary focused on Hokies instead of Terriers. Gary even leads the crew in an altered version of a favorite old Virginia Tech chant: “Hokie Wasper Hokie Hy! EHC and VPI!”
Everyone gathered before the game for refreshments at Blacksburg’s Bull and Bones and then headed to Cassell Coliseum to watch VT beat Grambling State 74-48.
Tickets for the event sold out fast. Suzanne Crockett Hauschner, ’86, and BJ Humphreys Graham, ’86 (above), with their Mike Young “fans.” Mike took time after the game to speak to everyone who attended, including Greg Griffin, ’87 (below right). Alumni Jerry Reed, ’85, Mary Sue Harris Caplinger, ’83, and Curtis Burchett, ’85 (below middle), gathered at Bull and Bones.
Mike took time after the game to speak to everyone who attended, including Greg Griffin, ’87.
Alumni Jerry Reed, ’85, Mary Sue Harris Caplinger, ’83, and Curtis Burchett, ’85, gathered at Bull and Bones.
The 175th commencement ceremony for the graduating class of 2023 was held at Fred Selfe Stadium on the Emory campus on Saturday, May 6. More than 230 graduates walked across the stage and received their diplomas with supportive family, friends and faculty cheering them on. Speakers included Dr. John W. Wells, president; Dr. Michael J. Puglisi, executive vice president and provost; Dr. Ann Sluder, ’81, chair of the board of trustees; Rev. Sharon Wright, ’94 College chaplain and co-pastor of Emory United Methodist Church; graduates Diego Zamarripa Velo, ’23 and Olivia Bailey, ’14, ’23; and keynote speaker Alan Levine, chair and chief executive officer of Ballad Health.
Beth Macy, a best-selling author who has drawn worldwide attention to the opioid crisis in Appalachia, spoke on campus about her books, Dopesick: Dealers, Doctors, and the Drug Company That Addicted America and Raising Lazarus: Hope, Justice, and the Future of America’s Overdose Crisis. Macy also was presented with a service citation from the College.
