Community Service Award

Alvie Jack Lilly ’55
Jack Lilly was a natural choice for this year’s Alumni Community Service Award. For nearly 30 years, Lilly was the organizer of the Lilly Family Reunion, the nation’s largest family reunion. Attracting more than 10,000 guests to Flat Top in Mercer County, this three-day family gathering and celebration draws politicians, famous entertainers, athletes, and national media attention each year.

While growing up in Shady Spring, Lilly enjoyed his family reunions. Along with his uncle Abraham, Jack Lilly played a role in the planning the Lilly Family Reunion from the time he was 16 or 17. From 1949 to 1974 the Lilly family reunion remained dormant, due to his uncle’s poor health. In 1975, Jack took over the reunion organization and conducted all the plans and work from his home in Canton, Ohio, until 2002, when he retired from his post as president of the event.

He graduated from Beckley College in 1955 with an associate degree in business and then attended Trinity College in Clearwater, Florida and Malone College in Canton, Ohio. He entered the retail meat industry and served several years in management, retiring in 1993. He has written and published six books chronicling the Lilly family history and is currently writing a seventh.

Lilly fondly remembers his time at Mountain State University, then Beckley College. “The education and the students I met still influence my life,” he said. “Mountain State University has a great impact on the economy in Beckley and Raleigh County.”

Jack Lilly’s legacy of service to the community and his dedication to his family and West Virginia heritage will be remembered for generations to come.