Everett Holle established the Holle Awards for Excellence in Creativity and Communication in 2015 in the College of Communication and Information Sciences at The University of Alabama. The initial awards were for Excellence in Media Writing and Excellence in Screenwriting. Three additional awards in Book Arts, Filmmaking, and Public Speaking were added the following year, with two additional awards in Forensic Competition and Sports Media (now Sports Writing) included in 2021 and 2023, respectively. The Holle Family Foundation endowed the Holle Awards to honor Everett’s legacy and to ensure they would continue in perpetuity.

For the first several years, the Holle Awards were primarily promoted to students at the University of Alabama and eventually expanded to schools in select national networks with the intention of eventually making them public to support student scholars and creatives across the country. In 2024, six of the awards went on hiatus to nationalize them. The Holle Award for Excellence in Forensic Competition continued that year because the Dr. Frank M. Thompson Jr. Crimson Classic and UA Alumni Individual Events Swing Tournament, which hosts the award, had already established national reach and recognition with college speech and debate teams.

In 2025, ten years after the awards were founded, the Holle Awards were re-launched and open to undergraduate students enrolled in any accredited college or university in the U.S.