Contact: Sammy McDavid
STARKVILLE, Miss.--A Mississippi physician praised for her "country doctor" skills and the head of a major international minerals supplier will address Mississippi State graduates during the university's two May commencement programs.
Dr. Katrina N. Poe-Johnson, who practices in her hometown of Kilmichael, and Richard C. Adkerson, chief executive officer of Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold Inc., will be featured speakers for graduation ceremonies on the 2nd and 3rd, respectively. Both are MSU alumni.
Held in Humphrey Coliseum, the first program featuring Poe-Johnson begins at 7 p.m.; the second with Adkerson, at 10 a.m.
More than 2,000 students are candidates for degrees at the conclusion of the 2008 spring semester. To accommodate large numbers of graduates during the fall and spring semesters--and to announce the names of all on hand to accept their diplomas--the university holds two ceremonies.
Graduates of the Bagley College of Engineering and the colleges of Agriculture and Life Sciences, including the School of Human Sciences; Forest Resources; Education, and Veterinary Medicine will participate in the Friday night event.
Degrees from the colleges of Arts and Sciences; Architecture, Art and Design; and Business and Industry, including the Adkerson School of Accountancy, will be awarded Saturday morning.
Poe-Johnson, a 1992 biological sciences graduate, also is chief of staff at the Kilmichael Hospital. In 2005, she became the second Mississippian and MSU graduate to receive the Country Doctor of the Year Award from Staff Care, a national medical staffing company based in Texas. (The first, Dr. Howard Clark, is a 1951 botany graduate who won the honor in 2000.)
Also a wife and mother of two, Poe-Johnson was chosen top rural practitioner from among nearly 400 candidates. At age 35, she was the youngest to receive the prestigious recognition since it first was given in the mid-1990s.
Poe-Johnson began serving her Montgomery County hometown in 2001 after completing training at the University of Mississippi Medical Center in Jackson. In recent years, she has received several additional honors, among them, the 2008 Mississippi Business Journal's Top 40 under 40 and 2006 Fifty Leading Business Women of the Year awards.
Freeport-McMorRan is the world's largest publicly traded copper producer. Beyond his duties as its CEO, Adkerson is co-chairman of New Orleans-based McMoRan Exploration Co, an international oil and gas exploration and production business.
A 1969 MSU accounting graduate, Adkerson completed high school in Kosciusko after having earlier resided in Tupelo. He earned an MSU master's degree in business administration in 1970, the same year he scored second highest on the national certified public accounting examination.
Last year, a $5 million gift from Adkerson created a major endowment in MSU's School of Accountancy, a unit of the College of Business and Industry. In recognition of his generosity, the 130-year-old land-grant institution named the 29-year-old school in his honor.
He also is a graduate of Harvard University's Advanced Management Program.
REMINDER TO LOCAL EDITORS: The MSU Registrar no longer releases the lists of degree candidates prior to the semester's end. Graduation lists for distribution to local newspapers now are provided to our office several weeks after the fall, spring and summer semesters have concluded.
For more information about Mississippi State University, see http://www.msstate.edu/.