News

West Virginia University bid farewell to longtime benefactors Betty J. Puskar and Carolyn Eberly Blaney in 2020. 

Blaney, a loyal WVU alumna who carried on a longstanding family tradition of philanthropy, passed away Friday, May 8, at the age of 96. Puskar, a longtime supporter of WVU and WVU Medicine, died at the age of 80 on Sunday, June 14, at her home in Morgantown.

Pamela Maphis Larrick will serve as chair of the WVU Foundation Board of Directors for the coming year. 

She was formerly an advertising and marketing executive who spent her career in New York City. Larrick also was CEO/ Chairman of two global digital agencies within the IPG Network and CEO/Chairman of Omnicom’s Javelin Agency. In 2005, she co-founded  IPG’s Women’s Leadership Network.

^{WVU Medicine commemorated the placing of the final steel beam on the new nine-story WVU Medicine Children’s Hospital during a virtual topping out ceremony.}

^{Betty Puskar}

^{Slated for completion in 2021, the 150-bed, nine-story hospital is under construction next to J.W. Ruby Memorial Hospital in Morgantown, which houses existing WVU Medicine Children’s services on its sixth floor.}

^{WVU students Charde De Lestre (left) and Amanda Hammons (right)}

Five of the state’s young emerging leaders have been named to the 2020 cohort of West Virginia University Foundation Scholars, the highest academic scholarship the University awards.