The Maine Principals’ Association announced Tuesday its second class of inductees into its Hall of Excellence, founded a year ago to recognize the best of the best in Maine scholastic athletics.
This year’s inductees include Peter Brown, Administrator; Norm Davis, Official; Paula Doughty, Coach; Richard Getchell, MPA Assistant Executive Director; John Huard, Athlete; Dwight Hunter, Athletic Administrator; Lisa Blais Manning, Athlete; Anita Murphy, Coach; Robert Stevens, Administrator; Keith Weatherbie, Athletic Administrator.
Brown retired in 2005 after serving as principal and athletic director at Jay High School. Prior to that, he won championships as a coach with Jay field hockey and Telstar baseball. He is currently commissioner of Campbell Conference football.
Doughty is among the field hockey elite in Maine, having led the Skowhegan Indians to 14 consecutive state finals, winning 12 of them.
Getchell was an asssistant director of the MPA in the 1980s. He was also principal at Westbrook High School.
Huard was a two-time, first-team Little All-America and twice earned All-Yankee Conference accolades at linebacker for the University of Maine, where he played under coach Harold Westerman from 1964-1966. He was a key member of the Black Bears’ 1965 Tangerine Bowl team.
Huard was drafted in the fifth round by the Denver Broncos of the American Football League in 1967 and enjoyed a four-year professional career with the Broncos and New Orleans Saints.
He went on to serve as the head coach at Acadia University in Wolfville, Nova Scotia, and at Maine Maritime Academy in Castine. Huard guided Acadia to the Canadian national championship in 1979 and in 1981.
He also was the head coach of the Canadian Football League’s Toronto Argonauts.
Huard was the first football player inducted into the UMaine Athletic Hall of Fame in 1986 and also was the inaugural selection in Alfond Stadium’s Ring of Honor.
Hunter was a charter member of the Maine Athletic Directors’ Association. He was named Maine’s AD of the year in 1980, received the State Award of Merit in 1983, was voted Teacher of the Year in the Caribou School System in 1995 and received the Big East Service Award in 1996. He retired after 41 years in 2001.
Manning led Westbrook to four straight Class A state titles, played on a Division I NCAA national championship team at Old Dominion in Norfolk, Virginia, where she was a senior tri-captain, and was an inaugural member of the Maine Basketball hall of Fame in 2014.
Murphy is one of the winningest high school tennis coaches in the country. Since taking over the seven-year-old Lewiston tennis program in 1979, Murphy’s teams have won 12 state titles. Now in her 37th season, Murphy was also inducted into the Auburn-Lewiston Sports Hall of Fame a year ago.
Stevens is retiring at the end of this school year after 37 years as principal of York High School.
Weatherbie most recently was an assistant in the athletic department at St. Dominic Academy, but is well known for his 21-year tenure as AD at Cape Elizabeth, retiring from that job in 2008.
During Weatherbie’s years as AD, Cape added nine athletic programs, and the Capers won more titles than any other state school in the same period — 85 championships in 19 programs.
The ceremony for this years inductees will be at the Augusta Civic Center on Thursday, May 21.
Send questions/comments to the editors.
