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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE --June 5, 2002
Contact: John Johnson or Randy Allen-- 517.332.5046

EAST LANSING, Mich. - June 6 - The recipients of the Michigan High School Athletic Association's Allen W. Bush Award for 2002 include two athletic administrators, and one of the state's most successful golf coaches.

This year's recipients are: Gary Hice, athletic director at Petoskey High School; George Waning, retired athletic director from St. Joseph High School; and Evonne Picard, retired coach and faculty member at East Lansing High School.

The recipients of this year's awards will be recognized at ceremonies in their communities this fall.
Bush served as executive director of the MHSAA for 10 years. The award honors individuals for past and continuing service to prep athletics as a coach, administrator, official, trainer, doctor or member of the media. The award was developed to bring recognition to men and women who are giving and serving without a lot of attention. This is the 11th year of the award, with the selections being made by the MHSAA's Representative Council.

Here are brief biographical sketches of the 2002 Bush Award recipients:

Gary Hice - For the past 18 years, Hice has served as the athletic director at Petoskey High School, administering a 19 sports program for grades 7 through 12. During that time, he has been a leader on the local, regional, statewide and national levels. He was instrumental in the development of the Big North Conference, which includes many of the largest enrollment schools in Northern Michigan, and also served as its secretary from 1996-98. He previously served as treasurer of the Michigan Huron Shores Conference .

Hice has served as a tournament manager for numerous MHSAA tournament events, and has worked on a number of MHSAA committees. He's also been a registered official in football, and a recipient of a 20-year award from the MHSAA for his service in that area. On the statewide basis, Hice has served as an elected regional representative in the Michigan Interscholastic Athletic Administrators Association, and was named a regional Athletic Director of the Year in 1990. He has also been active in his community as a church deacon, and served as a board member and president of the local Kiwanis Club.

Prior to becoming athletic director at Petoskey, he served for five years as director of parks and recreation and harbormaster for the City of Petoskey, and was a teacher-coach for one year at Petoskey High School. He earned his bachelor's degree in Social Studies from Eastern Michigan University in 1974, and his master's degree in Education from Central Michigan University in 1989.

George Waning - In his 40 years of service to the educational community, George Waning served as a teacher, coach, athletic director and assistant principal, most of which were spent at St. Joseph Public Schools, from where he retired in 2000. In his 29 years as an athletic director and assistant principal at St. Joseph, Waning hosted over 100 MHSAA tournament events, raised over $750,000 for athletic programs there; and expanded the athletic program from nine sports for boys to 22 sports, equally divided between girls and boys; and helped develop facilities for soccer and tennis, as well as new weight room facilities. His statewide contributions include serving on numerous MHSAA and MIAAA committees.

He was the recipient of a Regional Athletic Director of the Year honor from the MIAAA, and he also received a series of MIAAA honors for his multiple years of service to educational athletics. Waning has also served as a radio announcer for local high school sports broadcasts. He has also been involved with the Michigan and National Associations of Secondary School Principals. Locally, Waning has served as a eucharistic minister at his church, was an officer with the St. Joseph Lions' Club; served on the Berrien County Juvenile Advisory Committee; and received an award from the local Rotary Club for his community service. He is a 1959 graduate of Marian College with advanced degrees from Ball State University and St. Francis (Ind.) College. He was nominated for the award by the Southwestern Michigan Athletic Conference.

Evonne Picard - A pioneer in girls athletics, Picard retired in 1998 after serving for 26 years as a teacher and coach at East Lansing High School. After graduating from Purdue University, where she participated on the women's golf team, and coaching and teaching for four years in Middlebury, Ind., Picard came to East Lansing in 1972, where she initiated girls programs in basketball, volleyball, track and field in her first year, and golf for girls in 1975. She gave up the basketball and track coaching duties in 1975 to launch the girls golf team, and by 1979 was head coach of the girls and boys golf squads.

She continued her volleyball coaching until 1988. As a golf coach, her teams won 91 percent of its dual meets (592-60); two girls teams (1987 and 1992) and two boys teams (1983 and 1993) captured MHSAA Lower Peninsula Finals titles, and the two squads combined for 24 Finals appearances and 13 Regional championships. She is the only person to have coached boys and girls team champions in the Lower Peninsula. She has been named Coach of the Year twice for boys and once for girls by the Michigan High School Golf Coaches Association.

The Michigan Interscholastic Golf Coaches Association inducted Picard into its Hall of Fame in 1994, the first female to be enshrined. Picard has also served as the tournament manager for MHSAA Regional and Final meets in golf, and was a registered official in volleyball. She also served on the MICGA Executive Board and was active for 20 years with the American Cancer Society. In addition to a bachelor's degree in English from Purdue, Picard earned her master's in Education Curriculum from Michigan State University.

The MHSAA is a private, not-for-profit corporation of voluntary membership by over 1,300 public and private senior high schools and junior high/middle schools which exists to develop common rules for athletic eligibility and competition. No government funds or tax dollars support the MHSAA, which was the first such association nationally to not accept membership dues or tournament entry fees from schools. Member schools which enforce these rules are permitted to participate in MHSAA tournaments, which attract approximately 1.6 million spectators each year.