Tharpe named chair of MSU Board of Regents | News

A member of the MSU Board of Regents since 2017, Tharpe has most recently served as Board of Regents vice chair and audit and compliance committee chair.

He assumes the role of chair on July 1, and will succeed Eric Crigler, whose term on the board began in 2018 and expires on Thursday.

Tharpe, a resident of Nicholasville, said when he became a regent, there was only one African-American on the 11-member board.

“You look at the board now, and I think there are three,” he said. That number includes Leon Owens of Paducah. “It’s balancing out quite evenly, and I think that speaks to the whole issue of diversity and inclusion.

“I think there are a couple of things happening. There are more and more African-Americans that are emerging in higher education — more are getting advanced degrees. Murray State University probably has more African-Americans on staff than they had 10 years ago. So, it’s all about people serving time in office and being asked to step up and serve in these roles.”

Tharpe’s term on the Board of Regents and his term as Board of Regents chair end on June 30, 2023.

Tharpe is a native of Mayfield and a 1970 graduate of Mayfield High School. He is the son of the late Rev. Cleo and Dorothy Tharpe and has immediate family living in western Kentucky.

As a working high school student, he was employed at the West Kentucky Rural Electric Cooperative Corporation and Hawkins Furniture Store.

“Back in the day, one of my mentors was Paul Hawkins,” Tharpe said. “He ran Hawkins Furniture Store, and he and his wife, Joyce Hawkins, mentored me well. She taught math when I was in the seventh grade.

“I was really humbled about three years ago when she passed. She asked that I do her eulogy. You talk about something that shakes a guy in his boots — to have your seventh-grade math teacher leave in her will that she wanted me to do her eulogy. I never knew she thought that much of me and I of her.”

Tharpe said he hoped that he lived his life so that students in Mayfield could read about him and feel that was something that they could aspire to.

“When I was in Mayfield, I didn’t have a lot,” he said. “My daddy was a preacher, and preachers don’t make a lot of money. But, he instilled in me hard work and a work ethic and that education was the key to unlocking a lot of doors.

“So, I hope that some kid in Mayfield reads this and says, ‘Man, I want to be like this guy.’ You don’t have to leave Mayfield to do that. You don’t have to leave Murray or Paducah. There’s a lot of hard work to be done in those towns. But, I do hope that I am an inspiration to somebody.”

Tharpe attended Murray State University, where he earned both bachelor of science (1974) and master of science (1975) degrees in industrial education. He earned his doctorate in educational administration from Virginia Polytechnic and State University — also known as Virginia Tech — in Blacksburg, Virginia.

“I am honored to be selected as the next chair of the Murray State University Board of Regents,” Tharpe said. “The fact that this vote was unanimous humbles me greatly. I am passionate about my role as a board member and the work the board does as a body and as temporary caretakers of the university’s assets.

“This is a significant appointment because we are living in a world that realizes the importance of diversity and inclusion. … The significance of this appointment is not just centered around our work at the board table, but the significance ripples out to include our entire university community.”

Tharpe’s career in association management spanned more than 30 years. He served as chief operations officer of the Certified Financial Planner Board of Standards Inc., president and chief executive officer of the Pan American Health and Education Foundation and president and CEO of the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation.

Prior to that, he was executive vice president and chief operating officer of the Council on Foundations. Tharpe was also executive director of the Association of School Business Officials International.

Tharpe received the Distinguished Alumnus Award from Murray State University in 2005, the highest honor an alumnus or alumna can earn from the MSU Alumni Association in recognizing those who have excelled professionally and personally. Tharpe was also the recipient of the African-American Heritage Lifetime Achievement Award in 2018.

“Murray State is a special place for me because it is the place that provided me with, at an early age, the education and work ethic that allowed me to have a very successful professional career,” Tharpe said.

“Murray State taught me that it is not about where you come from that matters, it is about where you are going.”