Monday, July 17, 2017

Helen Galvin King - UK's First Alumni Director

As the University of Kentucky prepares to begin a new era of leadership it is a good time to remember the Alumni Association's first director who devoted most of her adult life to the Association and to the University of Kentucky.

Helen Galvin King (1904-1985) became the first Director of the UK Alumni Association in 1946. She served the Association with distinction until her retirement in 1969.

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A 1925 graduate of UK in Journalism, King held positions in marketing, public relations, and with newspapers before directing the Alumni Association.  In 1959 she launched a fundraising drive to secure $335,000 to build and furnish the Alumni House at Euclid Avenue and Rose Street.  The building was later named the Helen King Alumni House in her honor.


King participated in an interview for the Louie B. Nunn Center for Oral History in 1977 in which she discusses her student days at UK and her work with the UK Alumni Association.  The link to the interview is below:

https://kentuckyoralhistory.org/catalog/xt74mw289s88