Spring Commencement was, and always is, a great day for me and all of the Louisiana Tech family. I was thrilled to present diplomas to 957 graduates, Tech’s largest graduating class ever, and to celebrate the hard work and success of this newest group of Louisiana Tech alumni. The class included nine students with perfect 4.0 averages, eleven doctoral graduates (43 for the year), and three AFROTC students who graduated and were commissioned as 2nd Lieutenants in the US Air Force. We had many student leaders graduate representing a variety of campus organizations, including SGA President Allison East, and two former Miss Louisiana winners, Lauren Vizza and Hope Anderson. This class also has the distinction of completing their degrees an average of almost one year more quickly than graduates from almost all other Louisiana universities. I am proud of each and every graduate and am confident that this class will make their mark as leaders in all walks of life. Kathy and I were pleased to have our grandson Christopher at our house to welcome us home after graduation exercises.  We celebrated his first birthday with his parents, aunts, uncles, grandparents and friends on Sunday.  We were also happy to have Bret, Christy and Christopher with us for Memorial Day. After a day of catch-up and planning meetings on Tuesday, I headed out to alumni meetings in Dallas and Fort Worth on Wednesday and Thursday.  We had great turnouts for both evening ‘Tech’s in Town’ events with Tommy McClelland, Skip Holtz, Mike White and Tyler Summit joining me, Corre Stegall, Ryan Richard and the advancement team at each of the events. We also had several other meetings with alumni throughout the day, including one very special meeting that I had with 1944 engineering alumnus and former CEO of Trinity Industries, Ray Wallace.  That was my first time to visit with Ray since we recognized him as one of our first distinguished civil engineering alumni in 1990. Ray has been very successful throughout his career, and I welcomed some great advice that he offered to me during our visit.                 On Friday, I headed down to Baton Rouge for meetings at the Board of Regents. The first meeting was the Board of Regents’ Support Fund Planning Committee that makes recommendations to the Board about the programs and budgets for the Support Fund, a fund of about $25 million per year that is used to support professorships, chairs, fellowships, research and development, laboratory enhancement and other activities for all of the state’s universities.  I also chaired two meetings Friday afternoon, the Board’s Master Plan Research Advisory Committee and the Louisiana EPSCoR Committee.