By Staff
special to The Star
Oct. 15, 2003
East Central Community College instructor Lucille Wood has received the college's 2003 Humanities Teacher Award, a grant sponsored by the Mississippi Humanities Council.
Wood will be honored Oct. 28, at 7 p.m., in the Vickers Fine Arts Center Auditorium. She also will present a lecture, "A Past to Remember, A Future to Fulfill," to celebrate the college's 75th anniversary. A reception will follow in the lobby.
Wood is a native of the Calvary community in Winston County. She is a 1949 graduate of Louisville High School and received her associate's degree from East Central Junior College in 1951.
She completed her bachelor's degree in 1953 and received a master's degree in health, physical education and recreation at the University of Southern Mississippi in 1955.
The 2003-2004 school year marks Wood's 51st year of service in the Mississippi Community/Junior College system and her 48th year as a member of the ECCC faculty. She currently serves as chairman of the social science, business and education divisions at ECCC.
She twice served as president of the ECCC Alumni Association and is credited with creating the alumni memorial awards presented each year at awards day. The college also began presenting alumni awards during her tenure as the association's president.
Wood has been recognized for many athletic accomplishments, including helping to organize college tennis in Mississippi.
In 1975, Wood was selected as the first president of the Women's Basketball Coaches Association in Mississippi. She was coach of the first Mississippi Junior College All-Star women's basketball team in 1978 and was selected as "Coach of the Year" for 1978-79 by the Mississippi Association of Coaches. That same year, she was named to the Top 20 National Junior College Coaches of the Year.
Wood received many honors, including: alumna of the year in 1965, named to the athletic hall of fame in 1986, the ECCC Higher Education Appreciation Day: Working Toward Academic Excellence instructor of the year award in 1990; selected as an honorary member of Theta Xi Chapter of Phi Theta Kappa, the international honor society of the two-year college, in 1992; ECCC academic instructor of the year in 1993; selected as a Lamplighter in 1993; received the red rose award from Xi Chapter of Delta Kappa Gamma in 2002; and received a Mississippi Women's Conference power of one award in 2003.