Family and friends of Doretta Bright and her late husband, Coach Raymond Bright, gathered at the University of Central Arkansas on Saturday to celebrate the $25,000 endowment of a scholarship honoring the late coach’s career.
Bright coached football and track for 22 years. In 1949, he began his coaching career. He was the first officially hired junior high coach at Conway Junior High School. From there he became the athletic director, football and track coach at Conway High School. In 1958, he continued his coaching career at Arkansas State Teachers College (now UCA). He left coaching in 1971 and later became director of housing at UCA from which he retired in 1983.”Coach Bright loved athletics,” said President Allen C. Meadors. “And he was loved by many who encountered him at the Conway Schools and UCA. So, it’s fitting to have his friends and family here to celebrate an athletic scholarship named in his honor that has reached the $25,000 endowment level.”
The Raymond Bright Athletic Scholarship Fund will be awarded annually to student athletes. First preference will be given to football and track athletes.
Bright’’s wife, Doretta, proudly unveiled the endowed scholarship plaque that will hand on the Donor Wall of Honor in UCA’s McCastlain Hall. “The Bright family is honored to have this Raymond Bright Athletic Scholarship Fund endowed and to know that Raymond will still be recruiting for the purple and the gray,” she said.
Athletic Director Brad Teague said scholarships are very important to the athletic program.
“Scholarship endowments provide the added benefit of never ending support since the fund will never end,” he said. “But having an endowment named for one of our legends, Coach Raymond Bright, is truly special to all of us in Athletics.”
For more information or to make a contribution to the Raymond Bright Athletic Scholarship Fund, contact the UCA Foundation at 501-450-5288. – Jennifer Boyett
