Swimmers Cimera, Herron Earn MVC’s Dr. Charlotte West Scholar-Athlete Award

Southern Illinois University’s Alex Cimera and Olivia Herron have been chosen because the female and male recipients, respectively, of the Missouri Valley Conference’s Dr. Charlotte West Scholar-Athlete Award, introduced yearly by the league workplace.
 
The MVC Faculty Athletics Representatives chosen Cimera and Herron from a area of MVC student-athletes who met the award standards, together with tutorial achievement, athletics excellence and repair and management.

 

A two-time All-MVC First Team performer, Cimera has etched his identify into the report books. He holds The Valley total and championship report, in addition to the SIU report within the 200-medley relay, in addition to the perfect efficiency by an 800-yard freestyle group in Saluki program historical past. Cimera has been tabbed a Jerry Kill Award nominee, which acknowledges the highest male athlete at SIU, on two events whereas being named the MVC Swimmer of the Week a number of occasions.

 

Academically, Cimera has been acknowledged as a two-time recipient of the Conference’s Elite 18 Award, which is introduced to the student-athlete with the best cumulative grade level common amongst high finishers on the league championship. He has additionally been chosen to the MVC Scholar-Athlete Team on a number of events, graduating from Southern Illinois with an aviation administration and flight diploma with an ideal 4.00 cumulative grade-point common.

 

In his time as a Saluki, Cimera has held numerous management positions inside SIU’s Student-Athlete Advisory Committee (SAAC), together with a two-year stint on the manager board and Southern Illinois’ male consultant on the MVC SAAC. For three years, Cimera served as a Nike swimming and diving camp counselor, whereas just lately wrapping up his service as a volunteer coach with Special Olympics.

 

The 2025-26 MVC Swimmer of the Year, Herron finishes her illustrious SIU profession as a two-time All-American within the 200-yard breaststroke. The 12-time MVC Champion earned 10 Swimmer of the Week honors all through her profession, together with 5 occasions throughout her senior season. Herron, a four-time all-conference performer, left her mark on the MVC and Southern Illinois report books, holding 4 particular person MVC total information, three championship marks and three total and championship relay information.

 

For her success within the classroom, Herron is a four-time MVC Scholar-Athlete Team honoree and four-time Academic All-American, together with a two-time first-team choice. She was named the MVC Swimming & Diving Scholar-Athlete of the Year in 2024-25 and earned the Harold and Nora Kuehn Animal Science Scholarship at Southern Illinois in 2025.

 

As an animal science main, Herron spent most of her time volunteering at a veterinary clinic and a neighborhood animal shelter, whereas volunteering with the pre-veterinary and block and bridle pupil organizations at SIU. She additionally gave again to her friends by serving as a tutor to all biology and chemistry college students. In the pool, Herron frolicked volunteering at a membership swimming camp, in addition to a Special Olympics swim meet.

 

ABOUT DR. CHARLOTTE WEST

The first-ever recipient of the Honda Award of Merit in 1996 for excellent achievement in ladies’s collegiate athletics, Dr. Charlotte West was a driving power for greater than 40 years within the space of development of girls’s sports activities.  On June 30, 1998, she retired from Southern Illinois University, after serving within the capacities of head coach, affiliate athletics director, interim athletics director and senior girl administrator throughout her 41 years with the Missouri Valley Conference-member establishment.  West coached 5 ladies’s sports activities from 1957-75 and, in 1982, was among the many first group of girls inducted into the SIUC Athletics Hall of Fame.  She was inducted into the Missouri Valley Conference Hall of Fame in 2005 and the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame in 2014.  SIU named its softball stadium after West in 2003, and the NCAA named a room in its new nationwide workplace constructing in Indianapolis in West’s honor in 2012.

 

During her tenure at SIU, she grew to become the primary feminine member of the National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics (NACDA) and later served on the group’s board of administrators.  West was additionally a president of the Association of Intercollegiate Athletics for Women (AIAW).  In 1991, she was introduced with the Administrator of the Year Award by the National Association of Collegiate Women Administrators.  West additionally obtained the Administrator of the Year Award, given by the Women’s Basketball Coaches Association.