Contact: Sammy McDavid
After sprinkling his remarks with humorous asides for which he has become well known, a veteran Mississippi State administrator concluded his Friday address to fall graduates with a sober admonition.
Roy H. Ruby, the university's longtime student affairs vice president who recently chose to conclude his career as its education dean, reminded his Humphrey Coliseum audience that only 1 percent of the world's population has a college education.
"You are today in the top 99th percentile of the world's educated," Ruby said to those in caps and gowns. "While you have an obligation to your professional success and to your family, as an educated person you also should assume a strong obligation to be of help to mankind and to those who are less fortunate than you."
Ruby, a lifelong Methodist who was born in Yazoo City and reared in Belzoni, told graduates that all educated persons, regardless of whether they have religious training or not, have "a human obligation to be of help to others because life's circumstances have equipped you to do it." Pausing, he added: "You must give back."
In addition to the graduates, the fall commencement ceremony paid high tribute to one of Mississippi State's greatest sports legends, football and basketball announcer Jack Cristil of Tupelo. The multi-award winning "Voice of the Bulldogs" for 50 years, Cristil became the eighth person to be awarded an honorary doctorate by the university.
Ruby, a Mississippi State graduate, also urged his fellow alumni to make time in their lives to develop the art of handling controversy with civility, to always recognize and show appreciation for the contributions of others for successes they achieve and to assume the best of other people.
In observing, among other things, how college student vocabularies have changed since he was a freshman 40 years ago, Ruby's wit was evidenced in two examples.
"If a member of the class of 1961 had been asked what a 'server' was, the response probably would have been "a pledge in a fraternity house," the former Sigma Chi active said. "If asked what a gigabyte was, we might have guessed it was a new way of getting frogs through the mouth."
More than 1,400 MSU students were candidates for degrees at the conclusion of the fall semester. Of nearly 1,000 receiving bachelor's degrees, a dozen graduated with perfect 4.0 grade-point averages.