As the Bob Davies-Lou Foy Memorial Big 30 Scholar-Athlete Award completes its 38th year, a little reflection is in order.

Most of you know that in started out only in the name of Davies, the well-rounded, much-respected Times Herald sports writer, whose love of athletics was equalled by his appreciation of theater, literature, movies and music.

When he died of a heart attack, at age 57, in 1980, Foy, a coach and athletic director at Salamanca and Section 6 sports administrator, felt Davies should be memorialized with an award that honored a student who combined academics, extracurricular activities and athletics.

The idea was inspired except that it wasn’t gender specific, causing Big 30 schools to choose whether to nominate a boy or girl.

Thus, the first two years produced male winners, Coudersport’s Joe Bliss (1981) and Hinsdale’s John Hower (‘82).

But after Foy died of cancer in 1981, his name was added to the award and a girls’ division was created.

Since the award’s inaugural, 82 scholar-athletes have been honored, 41 boys and 41 girls.

That tie was created this year as there were co-winners in the female division, Smethport’s Emily Treat and Portville’s Korah Witherell. Derek Keglovits of Coudersport took the male citation.

Treat and Witherell sharing the award marked the eighth time that’s happened:

1987 — Mary Brush (Scio), Stacy Manning (Bolivar)

1988 — Bill Scillingo (Johnsonburg), Dan Mosher (Ellicottville)

1998 — Nick LaBella (Otto-Eldred), Phil Sirianni (Cuba-Rushford)

1999 — Brian Stavisky (Port Allegany), Matt Morris (Pioneer)

2004 — Susan Scott (Smethport), Cassie Buckley (Fillmore)

2009 — Brittany Gold (Bolivar-Richburg), Krista Tomblin (Ellicottville).

In addition, there was a shared award in 2001 as Ellicottville’s Kristen Hintz, who had glittering Davies-Foy credentials, was killed in a car crash en route to a college visit at Syracuse. But, her classmate, Lynn Halloran, actually won the award and, in a gesture to memorialize Hintz, enthusiastically agreed to share it with her friend.

Over the Davies-Foy Award’s 38 years, a total of 29 schools have had winners from the original 44 members of the Big 30.

Smethport leads with eight (a record seven of them females, including the first girl winner, Karen Reap in 1983), Following are Ellicottville, Port Allegany (a record four boys), Fillmore and Bolivar/Bolivar-Richburg (6), Portville and Franklinville (5), Bradford High (4), Coudersport, Salamanca, Scio and Olean High (3), Hinsdale, Whitesville, Otto-Eldred, Cuba-Rushford, Genesee Valley, Oswayo Valley and Cattaraugus-Little Valley (2) and Allegany/Allegany-Limestone, Johnsonburg,  Kane, Cameron County, Randolph, Wellsville, Pioneer, Houghton, West Valley and Northern Potter one each.

For the record, four of those schools won’t win again as West Valley has discontinued athletics in favor of co-op agreements with Franklinville and Ellicottville while Johnsonburg, Kane and Randolph are no longer in the Times Herald’s Big 30 coverage area.

Twice winners have come from the same school, Oswayo Valley’s Clay Nolan and Jessica Visseau in 2006 and Port Allegany’s Logan Hutton and McKenna Johnson in ‘14.

This year’s winners, Keglovits, Treat and Witherell each supplied Davies-Foy standards.

Keglovits easily owns the highest combined college boards (SATs) in the award’s history, an impressive 1530 (1600 is the maximum) via 770 in math and 760 in verbal.

Treat, whose sister Kate won last year, is half of the second sibling tandem to win the award, and the first to do it back-to-back. The Konert brothers of Bolivar-Richburg also both won, Kirk in 2005 and Kameron in ‘08.

Meanwhile, Witherell made Portville the third school to have winners in three straight years, following Grant Milne in 2016 and Ron Lott in ‘17.

Franklinville accomplished the same trifecta in the late 1990s: Melissa Ward (‘96), Jeremy McGrath (‘97) and Karen Fisher (‘98). And Bradford High did it early that decade: Tyler Ridgeway (‘92), Kelly Peterson (‘93) and Rich Wable (‘94).

And, oh yeah, over the 38 years, the Davies-Foy awards luncheon has now been held at four locations.  It started at the L’Acove (where Tim Horton’s is now located on North Union St.) until it closed, then came the Old Library until it went from being a restaurant to merely a banquet site. Next  was the St. Bonaventure Clubhouse which closed this year and, thus, Tuesday, the location moved to Sprague’s in Portville for the first time.

(Chuck Pollock, a Times Herald sports columnist, can be reached at cpollock@oleantimesherald.com)