RUTH ANNE BURKE

Ruth Ann Burke, Meritorious Service, Coach and Administrator—Peters Township HS—A physical education teacher at Peters Township for 28 years who retired in 1988, Burke coached basketball, golf, tennis, track and field and volleyball. She was a leader in forming the Western Pennsylvania Girls Athletic League (WPGAL) in the mid-1960s, which is believed to be the first organized interscholastic girls’ competition of its kind. In 1973, she became the first female on the WPIAL Board of Control, representing female athletics. She served 10 years on the WPIAL BOC and served as a district representative on the PIAA Steering Committee. Burke did a study at the 1952 Olympic Games in Helsinki, Finland, and earned two degrees from the University of Pittsburgh. She was the 1989 recipient of the Greater Pittsburgh Chamber of Commerce’s Women in Sports Lifetime Achievement Award. She received the WPIAL Hall of Fame’s Charles “Ace” Heberling Contributor Award in 2022.