WKU adds 3 to Hall of Distinguished Alumni

BOWLING GREEN, Ky. (AP) - Retired U.S. Army Col. Gary “Mickey” Riggs, Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist Rick Loomis and musician David “Doc” Livingston entered the Western Kentucky University Hall of Distinguished Alumni on Friday.

Riggs, 83, who resurrected a declining ROTC program at WKU and who also worked with Jimmy Feix to help save the football program in the 1990s, said he was just doing his job, sandwiching his WKU duties with a 27-year career in the U.S. Special Forces that took him around the world.

“I love Western. I told my boys that they could go to any school that we could afford to send them to as long as it was in Bowling Green, Kentucky,” Riggs told about 600 audience members at the Sloan Convention Center.

Riggs, who received an undergraduate degree in 1958 and his master’s in 1974, said one of the reasons he loves WKU is how the university reached out to him when his stepfather died. The university provided train tickets and money for him and his high school sweetheart, Margaret, to attend the funeral.

He and Margaret were married for 59 years. As a young couple, they made the move with one child from Duke University to WKU, where Riggs played football. Margaret got a job at Holley Carburetor, and Riggs swept out the dorm for Coach E.A. Diddle.

“When you’ve got a little one and you are 19 years old, the most important thing was your kid and your wife,” said Riggs, who referred to Margaret as “The Boss.” He said that trip from North Carolina to Bowling Green started his second love affair. “I fell in love with this place - big time. I cherish this university on the hilltop.”

Pam Thurman accepted on behalf of her father, Livingston, who will be 90 in January. She said his musical genius “was a gift from God,” since he was reared in the Kentucky coalfields where music wasn’t a high priority.

“He memorized Benny Goodman’s music - every one - and taught himself,” Thurman said. “He went to Western and wanted to play the clarinet, but there were no scholarships. So, he came back to Western with a bassoon and got a scholarship.”

Livingston, a 1951 WKU graduate, was the university’s director of bands and a professor, retiring in 1990. It was the music, and in particular, his love of just picking up a clarinet or sitting down at a piano, that motivated him.

Thurman said her father is humble, funny, has simple tastes and loves a good joke. He and other local musicians used to play at The Branding Iron restaurant in Bowling Green. Over the years, Livingston composed music and performed with Louis Armstrong and Dave Brubeck. In 1997, Livingston and singer-actress Rosemary Clooney received the Governor’s Award for the Arts in Instrumental Music.

Livingston has been married for 63 years to his wife, Joyce.

Thurman invited alumni to stop by Chandler Memory Care and visit her father. “He can still play music like he was in his 20s. He is still truly amazing,” she said.

Loomis, a 1994 graduate, came to WKU when the Florida newspaper where he had been working as an intern, the Palm Beach Post, said he had to have a degree “from a real school” if he wanted to work as a photojournalist.

Loomis said he took a road trip to Kentucky in 1988.

“I found a university I wanted to attend, but I also found a family,” he said.

“Western Kentucky University helped establish my core values,” he said, adding that when he takes a photograph, it is not only is his reputation and that of his employer the Los Angeles Times on the line, but also his university’s. He won the Pulitzer in 2007 for a series about the world’s oceans in decline. WKU graduates have captured 24 Pulitzer Prizes.

“I am only standing here because you took the time to care,” said Loomis, looking out over the audience to pay homage to his many mentors.

Loomis embedded with the U.S. Marine Corps to cover the onset of the Afghanistan war and prior to that spent a month covering the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. He also embedded with the Marines to cover the first battle of Fallujah in 2004 in Iraq.

Loomis said he believes in giving back to photojournalists and serves as a faculty member for both the Eddie Adams Workshop and the Mountain Workshops in Kentucky. He is married to fellow Los Angeles Times photojournalist Liz O. Baylen. “I stand here humbled by this year’s other honorees,” Loomis said. “I don’t even have a nickname.”

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Information from: Daily News, https://www.bgdailynews.com