Erwin and Yvonne Carol Asam, of Shepherdstown, and their sons David and Christian, will receive the President’s Award for their exemplary service to Shepherd University and the

Shepherdstown community during Shepherd University’s 136th Commencement ceremony to be held Saturday, May 16 in the Butcher Center.

“Shepherd University is pleased to honor the Asams for their generous support of civic life in Shepherdstown,” said President Suzanne Shipley.

“The Asams exemplify the life of service aspired to by Shepherd students, faculty, and staff.”

The Asams are the owners of the Bavarian Inn in Shepherdstown, which they purchased in 1977. The Bavarian Inn has restaurant facilities for 300 persons and 72 hotel rooms. Under the Asams’ guidance, the Bavarian Inn has received the coveted AAA 4 Diamond Award every year since 1982 and the Wine Spectator Award for Excellence for the past five years.

After graduating from Hotel Fach Schule (hotel school) in Munich in 1955 with a hotel-restaurant business degree, Erwin Asam worked in hotels and restaurants throughout Europe, spending two years in Paris, one year in Florence, and one year in Zurich. He immigrated to the United States in 1959, working in Washington, D.C., until he was recruited by Restaurant Associates to work at the Time-Life Building in New York City. At age 24 he returned to Washington, D.C., to open his first restaurant, the Piccadilly Restaurant, which he operated for 14 years until the Asams purchased the Bavarian Inn.

Yvonne Carol Asam served in the Women’s Royal Naval Service as a communicator with tours in Gibraltar, the Admiralty in London, and various other locations in England. After completing four-and-a-half years of naval service, she joined the Foreign Office in London as a cipher officer,

serving in Malta during the negotiations for that country’s independence. In 1970 she was posted to the British Embassy in Washington, D.C., for three years. She and Erwin Asam married in 1972.

Raised in the hotel business, the Asams’ sons now manage the Bavarian Inn. David Anton Asam earned a B.B.A. degree in hotel restaurant management from Cornell University in 1999. Christian Erwin Asam earned a B.B.A. degree in hospitality tourism management from James Madison University in 1996.