Contact: Sammy McDavid
STARKVILLE, Miss.--A 1990s National Football League great and Sen. Thad Cochran's chief of staff--both Mississippi State alumni--will deliver the university's fall commencement addresses.
Retired Buffalo Bills center Kent Hull of Vaiden, a four-time Super Bowl and three-time Pro Bowl participant, will speak at the 7 p.m. ceremony Dec. 14. Former MSU Student Association president Jenny Reeves Manley, now of Arlington, Va., will be featured at 10 a.m. on the 15th.
Some 1,200 students are candidates for 2007 fall semester degrees. 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 has held two ceremonies for a number of years in Humphrey Coliseum.
Students in the Bagley College of Engineering and the colleges of Agriculture and Life Sciences, including the School of Human Science; 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.
Hull is a 1984 business administration graduate now operating a cattle farming operation in Carroll County. Before coming to the university, he was an all-state football and basketball standout at Greenwood High School. At Mississippi State, he and his Bulldog teammates participated in the Sun and Hall of Fame post-season bowls. As a senior, he also was a selection for the annual Blue-Gray Game for top professional prospects.
During his stellar 11-year career with the New York team, he was a finalist for the NFL's Man of the Year Award and a selection for the team's Ed Block Courage Award. Prior to the NFL, he spent three years with the New Jersey Generals of the American Football League.
Manley is an Oxford native and 2001 summa cum laude graduate in political science. She attended school on both the John C. Stennis and Ottilie Schillig scholarships, the latter then being one of two top academic awards given to entering MSU freshmen.
During her senior year, she became only the second woman in the land-grant institution's history elected to lead the student body. Also during her final year, she was selected by then-MSU President Malcolm Portera to deliver the December 2000 commencement address.
Manley joined Cochran's staff immediately after graduation in May of 2001. Prior to becoming his top administrative aide, she was communication director for the Senate Appropriations Committee, which Mississippi's senior senator led for a number of years.
For more information about Mississippi State University, see http://www.msstate.edu/.