bill huppert endowed student award
"Take care of your family, take care of the earth, and be grateful for the beauty of the world around you and for every day on this earth."
- Bill Huppert ‘51 (1926-2018)
William George Huppert was born January 14, 1926 and grew up in the Highlandtown section of East Baltimore. He graduated from Patterson High School in 1944 and served in the US Navy during World War II from 1944 to 1946. While in the Navy, he learned to play basketball and load airplanes, but never saw the water.
He attended the University of Maryland on the GI Bill and played one year of basketball for the Terps during his freshman year. After graduating in ‘51 with a degree in physical education, he took a position as a physical education teacher with the Baltimore County Public Schools. His career as a beloved teacher and administrator lasted 32 years; some students called him “Uncle Bill” and he was known as “The Grey Ghost” vice principal, a disciplinarian who patrolled the school on his bike.
Bill was also an environmentalist who was committed to the health of the Chesapeake Bay. At the age of 76, Bill began building concrete reef balls that could be placed in the Chesapeake Bay as reef material and a place for oyster spat to grow. He built them in his backyard, the church parking lot, and several Baltimore County high schools with the help of science class students. He partnered with the Maryland Artificial Reef Initiative to have the reef balls placed in the bay. In 1992, he started the Maryland Saltwater Sportfishermen's Association (MSSA) Scholarship Foundation to support students pursuing higher education in ecology, conservation, and marine biology. He led the group as president for more than 10 years and a scholarship has been awarded in his name since 2016.
In honor of his long commitment to the bay, the Maryland Department of Natural Resources designated the Memorial Stadium Reef near Tolchester, Maryland as “Bill Huppert Reef”, which can be found on DNR’s online MARI map here.
This endowed student award, in memory of Bill Huppert, is made possible by the combined efforts of many people through the MSSA Scholarship Foundation. Peter Abbott, on behalf of the Maryland Saltwater Sportfishermen's Association (MSSA) Scholarship Foundation, established the Bill Huppert Endowed Student Award in Marine, Estuarine, and Environmental Sciences in February 2019 to provide merit-based awards for graduate students in the Marine, Estuarine, and Environmental Sciences Graduate Program in the College of Computer, Mathematical, and Natural Sciences.