Contact: Sammy McDavid
Bill Crawford
The new president of the Board of Trustees, State Institutions of Higher Learning will be the featured speaker May 12 for Mississippi State's spring commencement.
Bill Crawford of Meridian, who assumes a one-year term in the College Board's top leadership position four days earlier, will address university graduates at the 1:15 p.m. Humphrey Coliseum graduation ceremony.
Nearly 2,200 MSU students are candidates for degrees.
Crawford, who was appointed to the College Board by Gov. Kirk Fordice in 1992, is president of The Montgomery Institute, a new, regional non-profit leadership development organization based in Meridian. The institute is named in honor of Lauderdale County native and retired United States congressman G.V. "Sonny" Montgomery.
Since 1994, Crawford also has served as vice president for community and business development at Meridian Community College. Additionally, he is a founder and the managing director of the East Mississippi Development Corp., a regional non-profit foundation that aids start-up and minority businesses.
A former member of the Mississippi Legislature and the founding director of Meridian's Community Bank, Crawford is a Canton native and Millsaps College graduate. He is completing a master's degree in higher education leadership at MSU.
For four years in the early 1900s, he was chair of the Navy Meridian Team, a coalition of local leaders who fought successfully against federal government attempts to close the Meridian Naval Air Station. He is a former chair of the Lauderdale Economic Development Authority, Meridian Industrial Foundation and Lauderdale Council of Government.