Contact: Sammy McDavid
The Clay County native now serving as chairman of the board and chief executive officer of Sara Lee Corp. will deliver Mississippi State University's 1998 spring commencement address.
May 9 graduation ceremonies featuring John H. Bryan Jr. will be held at Scott Field, the football stadium, due to renovations under way at Humphrey Coliseum. Some 1,600 graduates are scheduled to receive degrees at the 10 a.m. program.
Bryan Foods, the West Point meat products company founded by Bryan's family, is a subsidiary of Chicago-based Sara Lee, the global packaged food and consumer products company whose annual sales total approximately $20 billion.
"The Bryan family of West Point has a long history of important contributions to the state and to the university, and John Bryan Jr. has established himself as one of the true innovators and leaders in American industry today," said Mississippi State President Malcolm Portera. "We're delighted to be able to welcome him home."
Bryan was a graduate student in business at Mississippi State student in 1959-60 and later headed the family business in West Point. He became president and a director of Sara Lee in 1974, CEO a year later, and chairman in 1976.
Among numerous business and professional activities, he serves on the board of directors of Amoco Corp.; First Chicago NBD Corp. and its subsidiary, the First National Bank of Chicago; and General Motors Corp.
An active supporter of the arts, he is a member of the Trustees Council of the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., as well as a member of President Clinton's Committee on the Arts and the Humanities and a member of the board of the White House Endowment Fund.
Bryan has accumulated numerous awards and honors. Among them are France's Chevalier de la Legion d'Honneur, Holland's Order of Orange Nassau, and the National Humanitarian Award of the National Conference of Christians and Jews.
In 1995, he was appointed a Knight of the Order of Arts and Letters by France's Ministry of Culture and French Language. Two years later, the French-American Chamber of Commerce named him executive of the year.
Bryan earned a bachelor's degree in economics and business administration at Rhodes College in Memphis. He also holds honorary degrees from Rhodes, Northwestern and Roosevelt universities in Chicago, and Millsaps College in Jackson.