FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
May 1, 2009
Contact: Anika Mitchell Perkins
(662) 329-7124
aperkins@pa.muw.edu
Peavey Electronics president to address MUW graduates on May 9
COLUMBUS, Miss. - Mary Peavey, president of one of the world’s
largest manufacturers of musical instruments and professional sound
equipment, will speak at Mississippi University for Women’s graduation on Saturday, May 9.
She will speak at both services, which will be held in Rent Auditorium,
Whitfield Hall.
The ceremony for the College of Arts and Sciences and the College of
Education and Human Sciences will start at 10 a.m. Conferring of degrees for graduates of the College of Business, College of Nursing and Speech-Language Pathology and the Culinary Arts Institute will be at 1:30 p.m. The Mag Chain ceremony will be held at 8 a.m.
Raised in Starkville as a sixth-generation Mississippian, Peavey
graduated from Mississippi State University with a Bachelor of Arts
degree and studied at the Harvard Business School, where she was
president of the Harvard Women’s Forum. In 1981, she became one of the first women to complete the prestigious Owner/President Management Program in the Harvard Business School’s Executive Education division.
Following an illustrious career in commercial real estate-during which
she founded and managed her own company while serving on boards of directors in the health care and banking industries, and as an arts
advocate for the National Arts Council-she took the reins as president
of Peavey Electronics after marrying founder and CEO Hartley D. Peavey, a lifelong Mississippian and fellow MSU graduate.
As president, Peavey oversees the business growth and development of the company. Housed in 27 facilities across the United States and the United Kingdom, Peavey is a multi-faceted organization that produces more than 2,000 music and audio products with distribution to more than 130 other countries. Peavey and its MediaMatrix®, Architectural Acoustics®, Crest Audio® and Trace Elliot® brands engineer the audio systems that power thousands of stadiums, theme parks, airports and other venues around the world.
Throughout her life, she has donated her time and talents to furthering
arts and education for the benefit of our nation’s children. She is an
active supporter of after school programs, and helped make history in
2006 by working to make Mississippi the first state to offer the
“Afterschool is Key” car tag, which benefits after school
programs.
That same year she debuted Peavey Afterschool (Not) Idle™, a singing competition for students who are enrolled grades K-12, as a way to engage the community in after school advocacy while encouraging youngsters to develop and pursue their talents. These efforts won a 2007 Community Economic Development Award from the Mississippi Economic Development Council, including a $7,500 grant for after school programs in Lauderdale County. She was named to the Board of Directors for the Washington, D.C.-based national Afterschool Alliance in 2007.
She continues to support after school and other educational programs. Peavey recently partnered with the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., to bring arts and music to Meridian and Lauderdale County schools. The Kennedy Center Partners in Education program instructs teachers on how to effectively utilize the arts as a teaching medium in their classrooms.
Peavey played an instrumental role in producing “Mississippi:
Celebrating a 50-Year GRAMMY Legacy” in 2007, the first Recording
Academy-sanctioned event held in Mississippi. Now an annual affair, the celebration also features the Peavey Awards-named for Hartley D.
Peavey-which honors the state’s many GRAMMY winners and nominees, as well as individuals who have played a significant role in developing and furthering Mississippi's musical heritage. The inaugural event won the Large Event of the Year award for 2007 from the Mississippi Tourism Association during the Governor’s Conference on Tourism.
