About Inductee

Doris McHugh, a 1955 graduate of the University of Alabama, was born in 1934 in Pickens County. A career educator, she taught elementary school in Tuscaloosa and then in Colorado and Louisiana before coming to the Huntsville City Schools in 1960. She established the city's first formal Physical Education program for Elementary students in 1971, hiring and training the personnel and writing the curriculum. Partly in recognition of those efforts, she received the Governor's Award for Physical Fitness. A year earlier, she implemented Special Olympics for the city. She also established the citys "Female Athlete of the Year" award in 1993. The same year, she was named one of the University of Alabama's Top 31 female graduates of the past 100 years and was also named the state's Volunteer of the Year for Retarded Citizens.