Official – Basketball
Lexington native Brenda Lee Garner Hughes was the second child and only daughter of Mathew and Alice Garner. Affectionately and respectfully referred to as “Ms. Brenda” during her days of officiating, she grew up in Aspendale, graduated from the original Dunbar High School, and attended the University of Kentucky. Ms. Brenda worked for the U.S. Postal Service and for the Lexington Division of Parks and Recreation as a seasonal employee, where she learned to officiate basketball. She became the first African-American woman to officiate the Kentucky High School Athletic Association (KHSAA) Girls Sweet Sixteen Basketball Tournament and the first woman to officiate the Lexington Senior Dirt Bowl basketball tournament at Douglass Park.
When Ms. Brenda was in high school, the only organized sport for girls during the pre-Title IX era was cheerleading. At this time, It was widely believed that girls were “not physically strong enough” to play competitive basketball and other sports. When girls played basketball in physical education classes, they typically were not allowed to play full-court games and could only play on either the offensive or defensive half of the court, but not both.
Although she didn’t have the opportunity to play in high school, Ms. Brenda turned her natural love for basketball into a pursuit of her referee’s certification shortly after Title IX became the law of the land in 1972. Along with 92 other women in Kentucky, Ms. Brenda registered with the KHSAA for the 1974-75 season. Ms. Brenda had already been officiating in Lexington’s Parks and Recreation leagues under the tutelage of John Will Brown, who was the first African-American male to officiate the KHSAA Boys Sweet 16 State Tournament. Mr. Brown had hired Ms. Brenda as a part-time Recreation Director at the Charles Young Center in 1966, where she had organized girls’ basketball leagues, cheerleading, drill teams, and debate teams. She also made the cheerleaders’ uniforms and helped produce talent shows and other programs for children.
After a decades-long hiatus, the KHSAA reinstated the Girls Sweet 16 Basketball Tournament in 1975, and Ms. Brenda became the first African-American woman and one of the first women of any ethnicity to officiate the KHSAA’s “Sweet Sixteen” Girls’ State Basketball Tournament.
Ms. Brenda was posthumously inducted into the Dawahares Kentucky High School Athletic Association Sports Hall of Fame in 1995. Having died of a brain disease at the young age of 39, Ms. Brenda is survived by her daughters Monique and Lucy Lee.
