Mary Evelyn Blagg-Huey was inducted into the Texas Women’s Hall of Fame in 1984, the year the Governor’s Commission for Women created it. She, along with Lady Bird Taylor Johnson and Barbara Jordan were three of the first twelve women to be recognized. At the time, Dr. Huey was President of Texas Woman’s University, her alma mater. Dr. Huey served as President from 1976 until 1987. She was the first alumna to have become president, the University’s first woman president, and the first president to have received emeritus status.
Though retired from her presidential official duties, Dr. Huey edited Traditions for the University’s Centennial in 2001, and in the same year, received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Alumnae Association. Her connection to the Texas Women’s Hall of Fame was made again in 2003, when, in March, the University opened the State Hall of Fame Museum, honoring 114 women in the Texas Women’s Hall of Fame. “It is altogether fitting and appropriate that it be at the women’s college, and I am glad it is,” she said at this event.
What was also “altogether fitting and appropriate” for students, staff and faculty alike was that the new library Dr. Huey had fought so hard for during her presidency bear her name. The Mary Evelyn Blagg-Huey Library is one of her cherished honors.
Honors and awards Dr. Huey has received, as well as mention of other service and activities, form a page-long list. So many relating to the community of Denton are worthy of mention; here are just two. Denton Chamber of Commerce honored her with the Otis Fowler (Outstanding Citizen) Award, and United Way of Denton County gave her life Board Membership after her successful year as its president. Others show the diversity of Dr. Huey’s passionate life of learning, education, and adventure.
Active in conservation as a member of The Nature Conservancy, Dr. Huey was a Texas Director for ten years during the 1980’s. A founding member of the Native Plant Society of Texas, she continues as an active Lifetime Member. A Ruling Elder of the First Presbyterian Church in Denton, Dr. Huey was also a Member of the Administrative Organization Committee of the General Assembly Council, and missionary to the Good Shepherd Hospital in Kananga, Zaire. She was Chairman of the Planning Committee for the Church’s Jubilee celebration held in March, 2003.
In 1996, Denton County unveiled a tribute to war veterans. Mary Evelyn Blagg-Huey, herself an honorary Colonel in the U.S. Army, had headed the committee to build the All-War Memorial. For her, the Memorial was a special tribute to her father, a man who had been a World War I veteran of the Army Air Corps. Dedicated to his country, “he used to talk to me about his war,” she said. She served the nation’s military with membership in and chairmanship of the Defense Advisory Committee on Women in the Service from 1983 until 1986, and as a member of the Advisory Board for the creation of the Memorial honoring the nation’s servicewomen at the National Military Cemetery at Arlington, Virginia.
On November 6, 2003, Dr. Huey found herself the recipient of an award she had created as Chairman of the Denton County Historical Commission in 1998, the Mildred and Taylor Hawk Award. The Award recognizes recipients’ extraordinary contributions in preservation of Denton County’s history. In the case of Mary Evelyn, it recognizes, among other things, her active year as Chairman of the Commission. Her many accomplishments that year included reorganization and refurbishing of the Courthouse-on-the-Square Museum. Appointment of qualified, experienced staff proved crucial because, Dr. Huey remembers, at almost the same time, Mrs. Hawk had made a successful bid on the Selby house with the result that the house was handed over to the Historical Commission for restoration as a museum. “Almost before I could look up, Mildred was there,” Dr. Huey recalls. In June, the house was relocated to the newly-created Historical Park of Denton County. The house transformed to museum was handed over to Denton County on September 11, 2001, followed by the Grand Opening of the Bayless-Selby House Museum September 29, 2001.
Dressed as she appeared for the Grand Opening, Mary Evelyn Blagg-Huey waits expectantly to greet visitors in the music room, by her own beloved violin. She still commands the bearing necessary when she wore the finery of her academic regalia or the elegant garb of president of Texas Woman’s University. Here, however, is the charming Mary Evelyn of the white curls, the sparkling yet penetrating gaze, with a turn of the head that shows such attentiveness to all around her that the visitor is not in any doubt about being in the presence of a lady.