MILITARY · HISTORICAL MARKER
Betty Mullen Brey
Weissport East, Pennsylvania
· A Champion Remembered
Military
3
Betty Mullen Brey, born November 23, 1931, and died March 21, 2015, graduated from Purdue University and received a commission as a Second Lieutenant in the U.S. Army Women's Medical Specialist Corps. Drawn to working with physically impaired individuals, she became a physical therapist and worked at Walter Reed Army Hospital in Washington D.C., rehabilitating post polio and Korean Conflict amputee patients. She also swam for the Walter Reed Swim Club, and her Olympic ambitions revived when she added the butterfly to her freestyle. In 1955 in Mexico City, she won gold in the 4 × 100 meter freestyle relay and silver in the 100 meter butterfly at the Pan American Games. That summer, she twice set American and world records in the 100 yard and 100 meter butterfly. After marrying Paul Brey, she qualified for the 1956 Olympics and became a member of the silver medal 4 × 100 meter freestyle relay team in Melbourne, Australia, fulfilling an Olympic dream at the culmination of a nine year swimming career. She and her husband then focused on raising their three children, Mike, Brenda, and Shane, all of whom became outstanding athletes. Her later honors and achievements included a State Department Good Will Tour to Finland, Turkey, Egypt, Italy, Greece, and Germany to demonstrate the new butterfly stroke and dolphin kick, coaching women's swimming at George Washington University, competing in Masters Senior Olympics swimming into her 80s, serving on the Alumni Relations Board of U.S.A. Swimming, induction into the Purdue University Sports Hall of Fame, induction with her husband into the Carbon County Sports Hall of Fame, and recognition as a Graduate of Distinction by the Lehighton Education and Athletic Foundation. During high school, she set three goals for her life: to become an Olympic swimmer, to marry her high school sweetheart, and to raise a family of three children, and she achieved them.
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