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Mississippi Supreme Court Chief Justice Bill Waller Jr. will deliver the summer commencement speech at Mississippi College.
Ceremonies are set for Saturday August 6 at the A.E. Wood Coliseum on the Clinton campus. Officials expect as many as 225 students will receive diplomas at the Baptist-affiliated university.
Waller has served as Supreme Court chief justice since January 2009. First elected in November 1996, the Jackson native was re-elected in November 2004 and again in November 2012.
Waller earned his bachelor’s degree at Mississippi State University and a law degree at the University of Mississippi. He received an honorary Doctor of Laws in 2012 from the Mississippi College School of Law. Waller serves as an adjunct professor at the MC School of Law in Jackson.
He brings other strong ties to MC. His mother, the late Mississippi First Lady Carroll Waller, was a Mississippi College graduate, as is his oldest son, Dr. William L. Waller, III. Other family members with MC diplomas include: his brother, Robert O. Waller, two sisters-in-law and a niece. Currently, two of his nieces are MC students. His great-grandfather, Asa C. Watkins, earned his bachelor’s degree from Mississippi College in 1886. He later taught at MC and the former Hillman College in Clinton.
The Supreme Court chief justice is also a graduate of the U.S. Army War College. Bill Waller attained the rank of Brigadier General, while serving as commander of the 66th Troop Command of the Mississippi Army National Guard. He and his wife, Charlotte, are members of First Baptist Church Jackson.
As President Lee Royce joins university leaders on stage, graduation day at the university’s basketball arena will be extra special for one prominent businessman.
A self-made Mississippi industrialist, J.L. Holloway will receive an honorary Doctor of Business Administration degree at the August commencement. He founded HAM Marine that later became Friede Goldman and employed over 2,000 people. In 2003, the entrepreneur founded Tenax, LLC, a capital investment firm.
The Ridgeland resident is a longtime supporter of the Mississippi College School of Business. The J.L. Holloway Business & Technology Center was established at the School of Business in 2008. There is a J.L. Holloway MBA scholarship at the Christian university for deserving students.
