Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey will provide the keynote address at one of the largest spring commencement exercises in the history of Troy University on Friday, May 11, at the Troy Campus.
Some 950 graduates representing 26 U.S. states, Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia, and 10 countries outside the U.S. will participate in the ceremony that begins at 10 a.m. in Trojan Arena. The ceremony will be streamed live at www.troy.edu/live and on Facebook, and will air live on TROY TrojanVision. To find the TROY TrojanVision channel in your area, visit the online channel listing at www.troytrojanvision.org/channel-listing.html.
Gov. Ivey, sworn in as Alabama’s 54th governor on April 10, 2017, has a rich history in Alabama politics, having been first elected state treasurer in 2002, re-elected in 2006 and elected lieutenant governor in 2010, becoming the first Republican woman to hold the office in Alabama’s history. In 2014, she gained the distinction of being the first Republican re-elected to the office since Reconstruction.
A native of Camden, she grew up on her father’s farm and graduated from Auburn University in 1967. She worked as a high school teacher and a bank officer before serving as Reading Clerk of the Alabama House of Representatives under Speaker Joseph C. McCorquodale. She later became assistant director of the Alabama Development Office, where she centered her efforts on job creation and economic development statewide.
Gov. Ivey has been recognized with the 2015 ALFA Service to Agriculture Award, as one of Newmax’s 50 Most Influential Female Republicans, and received the 2016 Public Service Award from the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics. In 2017, River Region Living Magazine named her the Citizen of the Year. She is the first Girls State alumna to be elected to an Alabama Constitutional Office.
She is a member of First Baptist Church of Montgomery, the Montgomery Rotary Club and serves on the board of directors of the Montgomery YMCA. At TROY, Gov. Ivey serves as president of the University’s Board of Trustees.
