FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
April 27, 2007
Contact: Anika Mitchell Perkins
(662) 329-7124

Sen. Lott to address MUW graduates on May 5
  
COLUMBUS, Miss. – U.S. Sen. Trent Lott will speak at Mississippi University for Women’s commencement on Saturday, May 5.
   
He will speak at both services, which will be held in Rent Auditorium, Whitfield Hall.
   
Conferring of degrees for the College of Arts and Sciences and College of Education and Human Sciences will be at 10 a.m. The ceremony for the College of Business, College of Nursing and Speech-Language Pathology and Culinary Arts Institute will start at 1:30 p.m. The time-honored Mag Chain ceremony will be held at 8 a.m.
   
Lott, who serves as Senate Republican Whip, is entering his 33rd year of service in the United States Congress. A champion of a strong national defense, he remains dedicated to encouraging economic growth and protecting Americans’ economic security.
   
As the House Republican Whip in 1981, he forged the bipartisan alliance that enacted President Ronald Reagan’s economic recovery program and his national security initiatives. Elected to the Senate in 1988, he was a member of the group who opposed a tax increase. When he became the Senate’s 16th Majority Leader in 1996, he and House Speaker Newt Gingrich enacted the historic welfare reform bill of 1996. The next year, Senator Lott and several others produced a historic budget and tax cut agreement that limited some federal spending and created new incentives to save and invest, thereby stimulating the economic growth that brought the federal budget into balance for the first time since 1968. As the Republican leader during the first two years of President George W. Bush’s administration, he led the passage of the President’s tax cut package, the President’s landmark education reform bill, the largest increase in defense spending since the Cold War, the most significant trade legislation in a decade, and the resolution supporting the President on military action in Iraq. During the November 2002 session, Senator Lott reached the compromises that created the Department of Homeland Security.
   
For 16 years in the House of Representatives and 16 years in the Senate, he has been a driving force behind America’s military success. He has been instrumental in bolstering America’s military recruitment, retention and overall readiness. In 1998 he led the charge for the first pay raise in a decade for military men and women. His leadership has led to the development for the 21st Century of a new generation of Navy vessels to maintain America’s pre-eminence at sea. He has worked with the Pentagon to advance Mississippi’s prowess in shipbuilding and weapons construction as well as the state’s strategic location for its numerous military installations. In 1998 as the Senate’s Majority Leader, he led a Senate delegation to visit the leaders of Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic and thereafter led the Senate to ratify NATO’s expansion to those nations.
   
Sen. Lott's top priorities for the State of Mississippi are its schools and its transportation system, the keys to the state's continuing economic progress and expanded job opportunities. He helped secure major transportation projects like Interstate 69, now under construction, which will bring much needed commerce to the economically-challenged Mississippi Delta. He continues efforts to bring Mississippians more veins of interstate commerce. Senator Lott has helped double federal research funding for Mississippi's public universities, which has enabled a new generation of Mississippians to build a brighter future. Senator Lott's focus on economic development and job creation was instrumental to Nissan Motor Company's selection of Canton, Mississippi, for its $1 billion automotive manufacturing facility, Lockheed Martin’s decision to place a state-of-the-art space satellite manufacturing facility at NASA's Stennis Space Center in Hancock County, and Rolls-Royce’s selection of the space center as its first engine testing facility outside the company's native Britain and the expansion of its existing marine propulsion facility in Jackson County. With his leadership, Mississippi is now a center for the manufacture of unmanned, drone aircraft. Northrop Grumman in Pascagoula, with strong encouragement from Senator Lott, has selected Mississippi as its site to manufacture its two outstanding unmanned aerial vehicles: Fire Scout and Global Hawk.
   
In addition to serving as Senate Republican Whip, he also currently is ranking on the Senate’s Aviation subcommittee. In 2004, he was elected chairman of the Joint Congressional Committee for Inaugural Ceremonies, becoming the first Mississippian to oversee the inauguration of the President of the United States. Senator Lott is a senior member of the Finance Committee, serves on the Joint Committee on Taxation, and is a member of the Select Committee on Intelligence.
   
He was born in Grenada and raised in Pascagoula where he attended a public school that now bears his name. He received his bachelor of science in public administration in 1963 and his juris doctorate in 1967 from the University of Mississippi. Married to Patricia (Tricia) Thompson Lott, they have two children and four grandchildren.