Contact: Sammy McDavid
U.S. Rep. Charles W. "Chip" Pickering Jr. (R-Miss.) will be the summer commencement speaker at Mississippi State University.
Approximately 800 students are scheduled to receive degrees Aug. 2 at the 10 a.m. Humphrey Coliseum ceremony.
Pickering, 33, is in the first year of his first term as congressman from the 3rd District. He serves on the House committees of Agriculture, Transportation and Infrastructure, and Science. He also is a member of the House Republican Policy Committee and the leadership body of the National Republican Congressional Committee.
Prior to his election to Congress last November, he served for four years as a legislative assistant to U.S. Sen. Trent Lott (R-Miss.), who now is the Senate majority leader. He also worked for two years in the U.S. Department of Agriculture, promoting American products overseas and working to aid Eastern European countries and the former Soviet Union to develop market economies.
A former Southern Baptist missionary before joining government service, he led in establishing the church's first full-time presence during the 1980s in then-communist Hungary.
Pickering, a seventh-generation Mississippian, is a graduate of the Laurel public schools. He holds a bachelor's degree in business from the University of Mississippi and a master's in business administration from Baylor University.