Madeline G. Perdue Foundation Announces $540,000 For SU Women's Basketball

SALISBURY, MD---In one of her last visits to Salisbury University prior to her death in December 2011, Madeline Godfrey Perdue, then age 91, had former classmates laughing with stories of the campus, its staff and life on the Shore in the 1930s.

“Madeline, you were excellent in sports,” 100-year-old Margaret Laws Engle told her. Perdue, who was featured in yearbook pictures of the women’s basketball and field hockey teams, was SU’s Woman Athlete of the Year in 1938. She would transfer from Salisbury to earn a degree in physical education at Madison College before returning to town and marriage to fellow SU student Frank Perdue. Together they transformed a family business into a poultry giant. For many family and friends, she also would be remembered as an avid outdoorswoman, philanthropist and successful women’s basketball coach (at Asbury United Methodist Church, now bordering the University).

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