CHAPEL HILL—The North Carolina High School Athletic Association announced today the winners of a special award established in the name of the late Pat Gainey.

                  Rachel Camp of East Rutherford High School and Marshall Beachboard of T.C. Roberson High School in Asheville have been named this year’s winners of the Gainey Student Scholarship Award. They will be honored at the NCHSAA Annual Meeting at the Smith Center on the University of North Carolina campus on May 1.

                The award is in memory of Gainey, a native of Dunn who recorded a outstanding record in women’s basketball at a couple of different stops during his coaching career and was a great supporter of women’s athletics.  His overall record at Pamlico was an incredible 93-6 in women’s basketball and he also coached outstanding baseball teams there. He then moved to Taylorsville, where he coached from 1955-64. His women’s basketball teams won five Western North Carolina High School Activities Association titles and at one point recorded 54 consecutive wins and an amazing 140 straight conference victories. His overall women’s basketball mark was 358-57. He was inducted into the NCHSAA Hall of Fame in 2007.

                  The Gainey Student Scholarship Awards are available to NCHSAA member schools in counties having a poverty rate of 20 percent or more for children 17 and under.  Student scholarship recipients can be either female athletes or male baseball players meeting the established criteria.

                  Camp scored over 3,000 career points during her basketball career at East Rutherford and scored 28.4 points per game during her senior campaign.  She was Most Valuable Player for her team for four consecutive years and was named to several all-state teams.

                  She carries a 3.7917 grade point average and was also selected as Homecoming Queen at East Rutherford.  She will be attending Virginia Tech in the fall.

                  Beachboard has played both basketball and baseball at T.C. Roberson, performing as a center fielder and left handed pitcher for the Rams. Even his part-time employment has worked around baseball, as he has worked as a “bat boy” for the Asheville Tourists minor league baseball team.

                  A member of the A-B Honor Roll and National Honor Society, he sports a 3.84 grade point average. Marshall has also been involved in volunteer activities at the Biltmore Church of God.  He plans to pursue a pre-pharmacy or pre-dental track in college.

                  The award is made possible by a gift from Gainey’s daughter, Mrs. Berry Jo Gainey Shoen, who currently resides in California.

                  “This award is a wonderful tribute to the legacy of Pat Gainey and all that he did for high school athletics throughout his career,” said NCHSAA commissioner Davis Whitfield. “Rachel and Marshall are outstanding representatives of the attributes that Pat embodied and emphasized.”