For 47 years, Evelyn Brockway has been hosting bingo nights in Vicksburg and Kalamazoo to raise money for Vicksburg High School athletics. The most recent estimate? More than $1.5 million for the school’s athletes.
The Vicksburg Athletic Boosters held a retirement party for Brockway June 4 in the high school cafeteria. Several current and past coaches stopped by to express their gratitude for her 47 years in running the bingo, the primary fund raiser for the Vicksburg Athletic Boosters.
She was also honored at the beginning of the spring sports awards banquet by Booster President Josh Baird, who showed a video that included current and past athletes and grateful community members thanking Evelyn for her lifelong commitment to the children in the community.
Evelyn, 79, was joined on stage by her daughter, Carla Brockway, 44, and granddaughter Katrina Holmes, 31. Evelyn and Carla will take a smaller role in running the bingo operations and Katrina has agreed to accept the primary responsibility in running it for the Boosters.
In 1991, when Evelyn was inducted in the Vicksburg Athletic Hall of Fame, an article on the front page of the Commercial-Express indicated she had already raised $500,000, a third of the current estimate.
During a dedication ceremony two years ago while naming the softball complex after her, Superintendent Charles Glaes said, “Through Evelyn’s and others working with her over these past 45-plus years, the current generation of children do not have to pay to participate in sports, but neither will their children or their children’s children.”