DePauw University

Prudy Hilger attended DePauw at a time when opportunities to compete in intercollegiate sports weren’t available to women. While at DePauw, Prudy played intramural basketball, and was the Kappa Kappa Gamma representative to the intramural board.

However, in her postgraduate years, she distinguished herself as a masters-level runner. For three straight years in the late 1980s, Hilger placed in the top seven of the 50-and-over age group at the Boston Marathon, including a fifth-place showing. In addition to the Boston Marathon, she won 64 races and finished second only three time while competing in the 50-60 age group. Breaking age-group course records at most races that kept records, Hilger defeated the 50-and over 5,000-meter American record holder when she won the Columbus, Ohio, Bank One Marathon. In 1989, she was the 19th honoree elected to the Colorado Sportswomen Hall of Fame, an honor given only to those who have three Sportswoman of the Year Awards in her area of competition (masters running). When she was 57, she was first woman overall in a 5k in Elbert, Colo. At the DePauw 50th reunion in 2007, Hilger was presented with the varsity “D” letter blanket. She has served on the house board of Kappa Kappa Gamma at the University of Colorado, on the boards of a ballet dance company and her homeowners’ association as an officer and board member of her chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution.