Justice Taylor to offer OSU commencement address

Tuesday, December 9, 2008

 (STILLWATER, Okla., Dec. 9, 2008) -- Steven W. Taylor, Justice of the Supreme Court of Oklahoma and a 1971 OSU alumnus, will present the Oklahoma State University undergraduate commencement addresses Saturday at Gallagher-Iba Arena.
Approximately 1,500 students will be awarded degrees during the Friday graduate college commencement and Saturday’s two undergraduate commencement ceremonies.
   
The Saturday morning undergraduate ceremony will recognize the graduates of the Colleges of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources, Arts and Sciences, and Education, with the processional beginning at 10:15 a.m. and the ceremony at 10:30 a.m.

The afternoon ceremony will recognize graduates of the College of Human Environmental Sciences, the Spears School of Business, and the College of Engineering, Architecture and Technology. The processional will begin at 1:15 p.m., and the ceremony starts at 1:30 p.m.

The City of Tulsa Pipes and Drums will lead the Saturday processionals, where candidates will be seated by college. Candidates will be announced individually, photographed and presented with an OSU commencement print while crossing the stage.  
Master’s and doctoral candidates will take part in the graduate college commencement on Friday night in Gallagher-Iba Arena. The student processional will begin at 6:40 p.m., with the ceremony starting at 7 p.m. The reception for new graduates will immediately follow the ceremony on the second floor, and is open to all graduates, their friends and family.

Among those honored this weekend will be Christopher J. Collingsworth, a Coweta MBA student who died in September, and his twin daughters, Charlotte and Samantha.  A posthumous degree will be presented to the Collingsworth family during graduate commencement Friday.  Charlotte and Samantha, both management seniors in the Spears School of Business and 2005 graduates of Broken Arrow High School, will receive their degrees on Saturday.  

Taylor, who received his law degree from the University of Oklahoma in 1974, served on active duty in the Marines from 1974-78, where he was trained as an infantry platoon commander and later served as a prosecutor and Chief Defense Counsel. In 1977, he was named the youngest judge in the U.S. Armed Forces, and he was promoted to the rank of Major.

After his active duty, he practiced law in McAlester, where he also became the youngest mayor in the city’s history. In his more than 20 years as a trail judge, he has presided over more than 500 jury trials, including the Terry Nichols Oklahoma City bombing case.

He has been recognized by OSU as a “Leadership Legacy” and a 2003 Distinguished Alumnus, and was inducted in the OSU Hall of Fame in 2007. During Oklahoma’s 2007 Centennial year, “Oklahoma” magazine named him to the “100 Who Shaped Us” list of people who most influenced the first 100 years of the state.

Additional details about the OSU commencement, including parking information, is available at commencement/