City of Murray honors the Valley champs
WBB: Senior Katelyn Young also received a 'Key to the City'
City of Murray Mayor Bob Rogers and the City Council honored Murray State’s women’s basketball team Thursday night at the beginning of the council’s meeting. The Racers were recognized for their program record 25 wins, along with winning their first-ever Missouri Valley Conference regular season and tournament championships.
Mayor Rogers also presented senior Katelyn Young with a ‘Key to the City’. After becoming the program’s all-time leading scorer and rebounder, Young finished 14th on the NCAA Division I all-time scoring list.
“It has indeed been a pleasure watching you on the basketball court as you represented Murray State University, and carrying the name of Murray all across the nation these last five years,” Mayor Rogers said. “Your efforts, your attitude and your demeanor, all combined with your skills that were obviously developed by many hours of dedication, determination and hard work, when combined with the outstanding leadership and guidance of (Murray State Head) Coach (Rechelle) Turner and her staff, and the skills and confidence of your teammates, altogether resulted in many personal accomplishments — but most importantly, success for your team. Because of all this and more, it is my pleasure as the mayor of the City of Murray to make a presentation that I've made only three times during my term as mayor. I present you tonight with a ‘Key to the City’ of Murray, and I want you to know that we'll always be proud of you, and thankful that you chose to get your education at Murray State University and be a citizen of our city.”
“To see the City of Murray and Mayor Rogers do that for Katelyn, just means the world to me,” Turner said. “I have a special relationship with him and Gayle, his wife, for a long time. When he reached out to me about this, it just touched my heart that he would think of her in that way, and she's very deserving of that honor.”
Young said Turner tipped her off about tonight’s ceremony a couple days ago, but it didn’t make the moment any less special.
“I'm definitely hanging it up somewhere,” Young said about her key. “It's super, super cool. Like (Mayor Rogers) said, this is only the third time he's (given out a ‘Key to the City’), so that's just a huge honor to me. It makes me feel real special.”
While a “Key to the City’ is rare, Turner told Young that the honor does have its limits.
“I told Kate I got one of those before (Rogers) became mayor,” Turner said, setting up her punchline. “It doesn't unlock anything around here. We tried to unlock all the restaurants, but it didn't work.”