Boyce Tate

Boyce Denton Tate was born August 30, 1927, as the elder of Amel and Evelyn Tate’s two sons. A native of Hardinsburg, Kentucky, Boyce graduated from Breckinridge High School in 1944. He then came to WKU to pursue a bachelor’s degree in industrial science. From 1946 to 1947, he served in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which included Foreign Service in WWII Occupational Forces in Japan and South Korea.

Following graduation from WKU in 1950, he taught industrial arts and junior high science in Leitchfield, Kentucky, and Alleghany County, Virginia. In 1954, he took a position in the Department of Engineering Mechanics and Graphics at the Virginia Military Institute in Lexington, Virginia. He earned his Master of Civil Engineering degree in 1962, from the University of Virginia.

He returned to the Hill in 1965, where he launched the engineering technology programs and served as their director and first department head. He remained there until 1989, when he became department head of the civil engineering technology department at Southern Polytechnic State University in Marietta, Georgia, which was the largest civil engineering technology department in the world at the time. He retired in 1995.

Boyce was a licensed professional civil engineer and registered land surveyor, as well as an accomplished wood-worker, sports enthusiast, and choral singer. He was an active member of several Southern Baptist churches, most notably First Baptist Church in Bowling Green, Kentucky, Roswell Street Baptist Church in Marietta, Georgia, and Forest Hills Baptist Church in Nashville, Tennessee.

He was married to Amelia Meador Tate. Amelia, also a WKU graduate, earned her Bachelor of Science degree in music in 1950. While a student on the Hill, she was a member of the university choir. She pursued a career in music, teaching private piano lessons.

Boyce and Amelia had five children: Boyce Denton Tate II, Stephen Roberts Tate, Sara Tate Saxton, Emily Tate Taylor, and Amy Tate Williams. Boyce Jr., Stephen, Emily, and Amy are also WKU graduates. Boyce and Amelia were married for 70 years until her passing on March 3, 2018, and his on August 18, 2020.

To further give back to the university, Boyce and Amelia established the Boyce Tate Engineering Scholarship Fund in 2002. The fund assists deserving junior and senior students who are working toward a degree in engineering. Through this fund, the Tates’ legacy on the Hill lives on in perpetuity.