By Jeff Harrison

For the News-Register

The Brooke County Schools have been selected as the 2022 recipient of the OVAC Denny Magruder Distinguished Service Award by the OVAC Hall of Fame Selection Committee. The district will be honored at this year’s 18th OVAC Hall of Fame Banquet on Saturday, Aug. 13 at WesBanco Arena in Wheeling.

Brooke has been a significant contributor to the OVAC for years.

It has graciously offering nearly all of its top-notch facilities to the conference.

At one time or another, Brooke has hosted OVAC tournaments in track, cross country, soccer, swimming and dual wrestling, and annually provides mats for the OVAC Ron Mauck Wrestling Championships which take place at WesBanco Arena in Wheeling.

Wellsburg was charter member of the OVAC and was joined right away by Follansbee in 1943. The Brooke consolidation has been in the conference since 1969.

Past recipients of the OVAC’s Distinguished Service Award include Denny Magruder (2010), Bob Robinson (2011), Carpenters Local #3 of Wheeling (2012), Judge Frank Fregiato (2013), WesBanco Arena Maintenance Staff (2014), Ohio University Eastern (2015); Oglebay Park (2016); Mickey Duffy (2017); Ron Miller (2018); Dave Schafer (2019); and Ohio County Schools (2021).