Contact: Sammy McDavid
Photo by: Russ Houston and Megan Bean
Mississippi Supreme Court Chief Justice William L. "Bill" Waller Jr. of Jackson delivered the morning commencement address. U.S. Northern District Judge Sharion H. Aycock of Fulton spoke during the afternoon program.
More than 2,200 students were degree candidates in the 2010 spring semester. In his remarks, Waller said he was told the spring class ranged in age from 20 to 72.
Both judges received their degrees from the 132-year-old land-grant university during the Seventies. Waller is a 1974 general business information systems graduate; Aycock, a 1977 economics graduate.
In his remarks, Waller passed on the recommendation of a senior Army officer in his ROTC program. He had sought out the military leader after first-semester freshman zeal led to participation in so many campus organizations that his grades began to suffer.
Waller said the World War II veteran urged him to learn to focus on things most important to him. "He said, 'If you start something, you need to finish it,'" the supreme court justice recalled.
"That advice has stood me well over the years," Waller said. "I ask that you consider it in your endeavors as you go out into the work world and make a difference with your lives."
Waller, who was elected to the high court in 1996 and became chief justice last year, also pointed graduates to a favorite Bible verse. Quoting the rhetorical challenge of Micah 6:8, he said: "And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and love mercy and to walk humbly with your God."
Like Waller, Aycock was in private practice for many years before seeking elective office. After serving as a circuit court judge for several years, she became Mississippi's first female federal judge in 2007.
During the afternoon program, Aycock stressed repeatedly the importance of integrity, ethics and personal responsibility. She alluded to recent state and national crises created by professional organizations and businesses that seem to indicate a lack all three virtues.
"A culture of greed and excuse exists at corporations," she observed. "There is a lack of personal acceptance and responsibility at the top of the corporate ladder, so how can we expect the rank and file to accept responsibility and to exercise sound judgment?
"Businesses are suffering today with hard economic times, but history, being the best indicator, predicts our nation will recover economically," she said. "But, will we recover ethically and can we restore and maintain professional business integrity?"
Pausing, she continued, "Yes, yes we can, and you, graduates, should make yourself a promise today that you will never for any reason, under any circumstance, compromise your integrity."
Also at the Humphrey Coliseum assemblies, MSU alumni Richard C. Adkerson and Bobby S. Shackouls received honorary doctor of science degrees in recognition of lifetime achievements and their longtime major support of campus programs.
Adkerson, of Phoenix, Ariz., and New Orleans, La., is president, CEO and a director of Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold Inc., a major international mining company. A 1969 accounting graduate who also holds a 1970 MSU master's degree in business administration, the former Kosciusko and Tupelo resident additionally serves as co-chairman of the board of McMoRan Exploration Co., a New Orleans-based oil and gas producer.
A past MSU Foundation president, he endowed $5 million in 2007 to what now is the business college's Richard C. Adkerson School of Accountancy.
Shackouls, a Greenville native now of Houston, Texas, currently is vice president of the MSU Foundation's board of directors. He is the former chairman, president and CEO of Burlington Resources Inc. Though he retired after the company's acquisition by Conoco-Phillips Inc., the 1972 chemical engineering graduate continues as a director of Conoco-Phillips and of the Kroger Co.
A member of the MSU Foundation board of directors, Shackouls, along with wife Judy, made a $10 million gift in 2006 to endow an honors college that now bears their names.
For more information about Mississippi State, see www.msstate.edu.